The mournful cry of the wind has been blasting my home from the Balsams since last night. Its cry is low and deep, almost like a distant train engine. Trains, my baby loved trains. It’s Tuesday, February 28, 2024 and it will be the first full day without my precious son Aidan Lee. I wiped the tear stains from my glasses before I sat down, but even that felt sacrilegious.
I’m lost, I’m broken, I’m angry, and I’m numb.
My son passed away yesterday from Type B Flu. Several days ago, they believed the flu had created an infection in him that was moving to his heart. He didn’t get back home to me until late Sunday evening. And he was sick, but I had no idea how bad.
When I got up yesterday, he had just gone to the bathroom, and I wanted to check on him. When I saw him, I couldn’t even describe the horror it was. I pray no mother ever sees and experiences what I did. It still makes me want to vomit.
We rushed him to the hospital at Haywood, then they flew him by helicopter to Mission in Asheville. There was a wonderful medical staff that did everything they could to save his life. But the doctor told me she would not lie to me. And she told me that if they did CPR anymore, it was hurting him and prolonging what was inevitable. I begged her to continue, but in my heart, I knew she was doing what was right.
My throat is sore, but I’m sure that is from screaming. The guttural screams that escape me are primal, and today the mountains echo those moans. I kissed my son and told him I loved him. But as his heart rate fell, I just went into shock.
“There is no God!” I wailed.
“Look at me! You will live for him!” My Dad shouted in my face, “And you will WRITE THIS!”
And as I turned in horror, I saw the monitor flash 0, and the numbness gripped my body and soul. I had to turn and walk away. My baby was gone.
I couldn’t stay much longer after that. The chaplain and some other woman sat me down in a chair, wrapped me in a warm blanket, and handed me ice water. I couldn’t lift my arms; it reminded me of the day he was born. I had lost so much blood that I was weak and had to be fed. Whoever this staff woman was, she held the straw to my lips and told me that being numb was normal.
Finally, I told them to go find my ex-husband, JJ, who was downstairs, telling my mother and brother, who had just arrived, that I wanted to leave. I couldn’t bear seeing them move Aidan to the morgue. I asked the chaplain to tell my ex-husband’s family to deal with it I couldn’t.
Right as we were pulling into the driveway, the mountains began to shed massive tears on my windshield. It was all I could do to walk inside my home. I just went straight to my bedroom and lay down on the bed, unwilling to move.
It’s 8:17 AM, and I finally got up to come in here and write.
Why write? My mom will tell you it has always been my way of processing my life. Even as a child, I would write to deal with my emotions. Secretly, I wanted to be a writer, but I have always lacked confidence. I even majored in English, but became a storytelling photographer instead.
Yet, just last week, I had an uncomfortable conversation with my father, expressing how I wanted to transition my career. I can’t shoot weddings forever.
But now I don’t know that I will ever be able to book another one because I will never see my son’s wedding.
Last night, grief would come in waves for short bursts like that of a train whistle horn announcing it is about to leave the station. They were sharp, quick, and utterly painful. But I noticed that when they hit, the heavens cried with me, and I could hear the spattering of raindrops on the tin roof outside.
Today, I command the hills to carry my grief and disperse it among these ancient mounds.
I now understand the pain of mothers who lost their children here. Oh God, how did they do it? I had doctors ten minutes away, a helicopter, and another hospital, and yet my son is still gone.
How, how did these women tucked away in the dark hollows with only the stones, trees, and creeks as company survive the deaths of their children?
It had to be the “sounding” hearing their own voices echoing back their songs and hymns.
Music, Aidan loved music so much. He loved playing banjo, and it was his greatest pride to play at our church. I regret the times I was late and didn’t see him play. I feel like a terrible mother.
I just want to hold him in my arms again. His body was so cold and swollen to think of it makes me physically sick. I don’t know how I am going to live with these images in my head. They are torturous, and I pray that no other mother feels this.
Between the bursts of grief last night as I stared dumbly at the pillows and walls, a poem I read months ago kept coming back to me, “Hill Daughter” by Louise McNeil.
Hill Daughter
Land of my fathers and blood, oh my fathers, whatever
Is left of your grudge in the rock, of your hate in the stone;
I have brought you at last what you sternly required that I
bring you,
And have brought it alone.
I, who from the womb must be drawn, through the firstborn,
a daughter,
And could never stand straight with the rifle, nor lean with
the plow;
Here is ease for the curse, here is cause for the breaking of silence.
You can answer me now.
It has taken me long to return, and you died without
Knowing
But down where the veins of the rock and the aspen tree
Run-
Land of my fathers and blood, oh my fathers, whatever
Is left your hearts in the dust,
I have brought you a son.
God has my son, but soon the hill overlooking the church steeple on Panter Creek, with the view of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, will soon cradle him too.
I pray my fathers, and my fathers’ fathers, were waiting to greet him when he slipped his earthly form. I pray my grandfather was there to wrap him in a bear hug. And that Brian Rich, who took what was of his last money to buy Aidan a new banjo a few months ago, was there too. He recently passed of cancer.
I must do something because this pain is too much.
Part of me wants to believe there is no God or heaven. But then another part of my spirit rejoices that my son can no longer feel pain there. How can your spirit rejoice when your heart is shattered? This makes no sense to me.
I don’t know why I am writing this morning or why I am sharing this publicly. Nothing makes sense to me right now. I’m still numb, and I pray I stay numb forever, because this numbness is comforting. I don’t want to feel what I know is coming.
The days, weeks, months, and years of crushing guilt and suffocating grief. I can’t do this I would rather be numb. I want to be with him so badly.
JJ is finally asleep, and I don’t have the heart to wake him. I just need to be alone with the wind violently tossing my wind chimes. Let the earth be violent and quake with the grief inside my soul. I would be delighted to have it swallow the world whole in this moment.
And part of me, when I awakened, remembered the ritual the Cherokee had of “going to water” in the mornings. Part of me wanted to get up before dawn and just stand in the bone-chilling waters of Sunburst just so I could feel something. To let the rivulets sting my skin to shock me awake from this dream.
But it isn’t a dream, is it?
I don’t know why my son was called home. I’m bitterly hurt and angry, and sick.
What I can say is this: why Ron Rash wrote “Saints at the River” after his child was nearly killed makes sense to me now. He needed a way to process his emotions. But I was also reminded this morning about his other novel, “The Cove.”
After the character of Laurel is killed, Walter, a German musician who had been held prisoner in Hot Springs, NC, is allowed to leave. He is on his way to New York to play his flute again. Although I know I need to reread it, I do recall what the last page was about. Walter now understood that to really play his instrument, he had to have felt real, soul-searing pain. It awakened his inner creativity.
Perhaps this is what I am doing. My soul is trying to find an outlet, and it simply wants me to get it out on paper. My grief is raw and primal, and I can’t get myself up physically to use my camera. I don’t even want to touch it. But I can use this release.
Aidan, I loved you more than I can ever express. You are forever in my heart, and I cannot wait until we are together again. Son, you were braver and bolder than I was, and I will do my best to live up to your standard. I wish I could hold you in my arms and stroke your hair one more time, but as many have told me, you are not here, just your earthly vessel. That vessel was damaged badly, but in my soul, you will always be smiling and saying, “Hey Mom!”
Son, I love you.
