Remembering Parker: Day 5 - Tuesday, July 12th

Tuesday was long and emotional. We knew we would all get together around 7:00pm. The hospital put us in a private room. I guess private rooms are for the seriously injured or for those who are dying... we were grateful for the privacy. They allowed us to have more then just two people at his bedside at a time as well. I jokingly asked what the limit was as there are a lot of people on both sides of our family and we could easily get up to 30+ at a time. The love and support from family and friends helped so much.

Before 7:00pm the nursed worked on removing the machines and most monitors. It was emotional as we knew this was nearing the end.


Unfortunately, the nurse in this photograph was the hardest to work with. I wish I had photographs of all the cool ones who helped us with Parker. Thank you to the great, amazing care.

Parker was so swollen from all the fluids in him. I HATED seeing him like this. He didn't look like himself as much. Parker was our skinny boy (ok... all of our kids are :D) ... he always needed a belt to keep his pants up! Good thing for braided belts! Here he was way heavier, his eyes still closed. I prayed Parker would lose some of the water weight. I prayed he would look like himself before he died. I wanted to Parker to look like Parker. Please!



There is a service within the hospital (I am blanking on the name of the group) who come and do hand and fist molds of our children who are dying. They came around noon to do this for us. I am so grateful to have these molds. You can even see the blisters on the bottom of his feet (Long story... I will tell you about it one day).



My mom took care of Parker Monday through Friday while I worked. Thank you Mom! Parker LOVED to get my moms pens and click them. He would grab them and run away so he could hold it as long as possible before my mom would get it back. It was a fun game for him. He loved to color with them when my mom would let him. He also loved balls and loved to throw them around. So, after the mold was done my mom put a couple of his favorite pens in his hand and we helped him make some marks on the index card. We put a ball next to him so he could play.



We finally got everything off of Parker and brought everyone into the room around 8:30pm. We all sat around and just talked about memories of feelings. Almost everyone there made a comment or told a story. Almost every adult in the room was able to hold Parker. Some didn't want to as it was too hard for them. We didn't want the kids to hold him because he was very heavy with the fluids and he also had no control over his body. It was like a newborn with no control over and part of his body. In some ways it brought me closer to Parker as I had to care for him COMPLETELY. In some ways it was harder because I know what he could do just a few days ago. We all held him close. We talked. Shared stories. We cried.

(See photographs below. Click on the image if you want to see it bigger).