At 4:16pm on November 15, 2014, my son was pronounced dead, along with a 1/3 of my heart.

The human mind is an incredible thing.  The way our body goes into shock still astounds me to this day.  I had never experienced shock on this level.  Nothing even remotely close to a tragedy like this has ever happened to me before. For a brief time, I saw myself in 3rd person.  It’s as though I had a view from the ceiling looking down.  I saw myself being comforted by my sister in law’s mother and my friend, Cheryl.  I watched myself sitting in a trance on a sofa.  I saw Troy pacing and struggling to breathe.  Keely held a look of astonishment on her face that haunts me today.  Colton appeared broken beyond description.  My father in law’s crying could be heard in all corners of that hospital, yet it seemed distant to me at the time.  Voices still sounded like people speaking in a tunnel.  At last, the tears came.

I knew I needed a priest.  It was one of the most clear thoughts I had.  I called the two closest to me.  With the time being so near to the evening hours, they were each preparing for Mass.  I left voicemails for both.  I had most of my family, but the desire to speak with a pastor consumed me. Right about then, Troy walked over to me and asked me if I wanted to see Dalton.  The thought paralyzed me.  What would I see?  How would he look?  Will his spirit be present in the room watching us as we cry?  Fear enveloped my entire being right down to my feet.  My body was grounded in that hallway and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to walk.  I looked at the pain in my husband’s eyes, took his hand, and walked the hardest steps of my life through a set of double doors leading to a room partitioned by a curtain.  I took one look at my baby boy and all the air was stolen from my lungs.

Looking at Dalton for the first time laying on that table is one of those memories that cripples me daily.  Not one day goes by without seeing that image.  Part of me thinks that is the devil’s reminder that he is the source of all death.  My son’s body was covered up to his chin with a thin, white sheet.  His eyes closed and puffy.  A tube of some kind remained inside of his mouth.  The left side of his head was stained with his blood.  At first, I couldn’t touch him.  I don’t know how long I stood there, cried, held Troy, or reminded myself to breathe.  I had never wept like that in my life.  I remember looking into Troy’s broken eyes as if to gain some sort of reassurance, but came up empty handed.  At last I pulled the sheet back and touched my son’s hand.  It was still warm.  I noticed a small cut on it that I had seen the Thursday night before as I cut his fingernails.  I traced every line on his hand as I have done 100 times before in church out of habit to relax him, as my Dad used to do with my own hand.  I worked my way slowly up his arm, across his chest, and up the side of his face.  I ran my fingers across his hairline, down through the middle of his eyebrows and nose, and back along his cheek.  My perfect baby.  The thought that I would never look into his beautiful eyes again on this earth struck me like a ton of bricks.  Those eyes. Only an hour and half earlier those eyes looked into mine and said, “I just came in real quick to get Tyler some gloves.”

Troy and I went to find Colton and Keely to ask them if they wanted to see their brother.  They both did.  Watching them grieve over the loss of their sibling intensified the pain to a new level.  He wasn’t just our baby, he was theirs too.  I wanted to take their pain away.  Each kid caressed his body with slow, careful motions as not to wake him.  Keely was consumed with sorrow, Colton appeared slightly withdrawn and angry.  We prayed together over his body.  Before we walked out, Colton walked back over to the table, bent over the body of his brother and sobbed uncontrollably.  The image was almost too much for my heart to take.  It still didn’t seem real.

Right about then, the first call came in from a woman asking me if I would donate my son’s organs.  It had been an hour since Dalton was pronounced dead.  I stood about three feet away from my son’s lifeless body and listened to her list off all the ways my son’s organs could help save another person’s life.  Still in shock, I said I didn’t  know.  She said that was okay and that she would call me back shortly to see if I had changed my mind.  I remember thinking how hard that job would be, asking permission to family members for the donation of a loved one’s organs.

The sheriff’s office sent a chaplain.  He was a kind, older man who spoke in a deep comforting voice.  We exchanged introductions and I said that I needed to know DD was in Heaven.  He grabbed my elbow, ushered me to a quiet corner of the hallway, and pulled out a bible.  “Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)  I cried in this strangers arms.  I wanted my son back.

More time passed. Somebody on the hospital staff brought me a cup of water.  I took a sip and threw it on the ground, immediately feeling embarrassed.  The woman wanting to know if I had made up my mind about Dalton’s organs called for the second time.  I told her we had decided not to donate Dalton’s organs.  Looking back, I don’t know why exactly we made that decision.  All is know is that once you make a decision like that, you can’t second guess your choice.  There is very little time in which this decision has to be made, and we were very emotional.  In the end, we wanted our child’s body to remain intact.

The sheriff’s office had investigators waiting to speak with us.  I wanted to know the answers to what caused Dalton’s death, yet didn’t.  We walked into a private room and listened to the details.  Dalton had been playing tag with his friend on the Rangers.  He took a turn too sharp around a tree, rolled the Ranger several times and suffered a severe head injury.  He had his seatbelt on.  His death was instant.  It was summed up in a couple sentences.  I had no questions for them.  A third call came asking me if I had changed my mind about the organs.

Father Schemm showed up at the hospital.  He looked at me, shook his head, and held me.  He followed us into the room where our son laid.  Together with my husband and my children, I watched my pastor read a “prayer for the already deceased” out of a small black book to my child while fighting back his own tears.  It was a moment I never want to remember, yet I’ll never forget.

I have struggled about starting a blog for awhile now.  I think I haven’t started it because I didn’t want to do it until it felt right.  Part of me wanted to pray about it and let God tell me when to begin.  The last thing I wanted was to be a nonsense rambler about her grief.  However, I believe I can help people turn tragedy into triumph and that is exactly what I hope to do.

In November of 2000, I told my mom I was expecting baby #3.  I was 24 years old and a kindergarten teacher at a Catholic school.  I already had two kids, ages 4 and 2.  I felt blessed and scared to death at the same time.  I was already so busy as a working mom of two, and couldn’t believe I was about to add another baby to the mix!  Fast forward 7 months and the day came that I was to be induced.  True to his personality, this jubilant baby boy decided he would come into this world his own way and my contractions began just hours before I was set to be admitted into the hospital.  At 9:04am on June 21, 2001 I gave birth to my son, Dalton “DD” Thomas Palmer.  I held his 9lbs, 13 ounces in my arms for the first time and felt a love so strong my heart might burst with happiness.  I had no idea that God would only lend me this child for 13 years before he would be called home.

Saturday, November 15, 2014, was a completely normal day.  My husband and I had been to the grocery store and I was at home cooking chili and cupcakes for my family.  My oldest, Colton, was at Wal-Mart with his friend and my middle child, Keely, was hanging out at the house.  Dalton had a friend, Tyler, over for the weekend.  Everyday, I pile up my 3 dogs in a Polaris Ranger and drive them to the north part of our land and let them run free on a section of our 105 acres.  That day was no exception.  At around 1:30pm, I loaded them up and headed out.  As I was driving north, I passed Dalton in another Ranger.  We each drove slowly by each other, waved, and in typical Dalton fashion, he gave me a head nod.  I laughed at him and snapped the last picture that would ever be taken of him.

It was cold that day.  DD was wearing multiple layers of clothing, bright orange gloves, and a skull-looking ski mask.  Anyway, we passed each other and went along our way.  Taking my dogs to run everyday is my quiet time.  I use that time to pray, read, or otherwise just be still as they run about.  On that particular day, I knew something bothered me and I pulled up the picture of DD.  I noticed that his seatbelt wasn’t on.  So, I called him and he picked up (to my surprise).  I asked him if he and Tyler were being careful where they were playing.  We live on a horse ranch where running errands on a Polaris Ranger is the norm.  My husband owned several and I knew Dalton and Tyler were each in their own Rangers driving around.  Dalton has been riding in and driving one for years (though he was only 13 at the time – something I will regret letting him do for the rest of my life), so this wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary.  He assured me that he and Tyler were both driving slow and that he would put on his seatbelt asap.  That satisfied me.  He told me he loved me before we got off the phone.  I came home around 2:30.  At 3:00, as I was putting the cupcakes into the oven, Dalton whizzed by me in the kitchen to tell me he came back into the house to get some gloves for Tyler.  It was your typical brief encounter with a teenager that was like so many you have had before.  Except, this would be our last and it will be a time stamp of my memory forever, as I would never see him alive again.

Somewhere around 3:30, my brother called me.  He is a police officer/fireman in our small town and was off duty at the time.  His tone was urgent.  He said a call had come in where someone had reported an ATV accident on our land involving an approx. 17 year old.  My first thought was “how horrible for someone.”  I took a quick inventory of my children.  Colton was at Wal-Mart, Keely was in the kitchen with me, and Dalton is far from being 17.  I decided I needed to check things out, gave instructions to Keely on when to take the cupcakes out of the oven, and hopped on my Ranger to go see who was injured.  I still felt pretty calm as I drove out to where the accident had been reported.  From hearing my brothers directions, I knew to drive out to the cross country course where the horse owners often take their horses riding.  I pulled up and saw a sheriffs officer immediately.  Somewhere off in the distance, a few people stood.  I remember seeing Tyler sobbing.  For some reason, the last place I looked, I saw him.  A paramedic was already attending to Dalton as he lay motionless.  I wanted to get closer, but the sheriff’s officer wouldn’t allow it.  I didn’t understand.  Shock took over.  Wasn’t it a 17 year old kid who was hurt?  How did that get misinterpreted?  How bad was it?  Why couldn’t I get closer?  Then I looked over the officer’s shoulder at my son.  I know I screamed and asked why he was so still.  The officer insisted they were “working on him.” When I asked if he was breathing, the officer replied, “it isn’t good.”

Somewhere during this time, I know Keely and my husband showed up.  Dalton had been laying there for at least 15 minutes with me getting no answers from anyone.  I started praying.  That’s when it happened.  My senses had kicked into overdrive and shock started taking over.  I saw Troy (my husband) run to where Dalton was laying, scream, and punch the side of the ambulance.  Several fireman and sheriff officers attempted to comfort me and instruct me on following the ambulance to the nearest hospital.  The sounds of everyone’s voices sounded like they were talking in a tunnel.  We loaded up in Troy’s jeep and followed the ambulance as instructed.  The hospital was located about 15-20 min away.  That now totaled at least 30 minutes of not having a clue how he was.  That car ride was the longest of my life.  We screamed, we prayed, we sped, and we screamed some more.

We arrived at the hospital and were quickly ushered into a small waiting room.  I had long enough to make a phone call to my best friend to tell her what was happening.  I remember seeing my brother.  I don’t know who else was waiting with us.  Maybe my parents, maybe Troy’s parents, I don’t know.  What I do know is that it took about 10 minutes after our arrival for the worst news of my life to come.  In a very matter of fact manner, a short doctor entered the room, shook his head, and said he “tried everything he could.”  I remember not having immediate tears.  I remember not recognizing anyone’s faces in the room. I remember the denial of the news.  Not my kid.  Not my life.  Not me.  Not Dalton.  I found my husband.  I held him.  We screamed together.  After saying “no” about 100 times, I remember my first words.  They were immediate and raw.  They held no specific meaning to me at the time, but after reflecting on that day 1,000 times since, I see now the importance of my first thoughts.  I kept screaming that “He can’t have him… He can’t have him.”  My immediate reaction was that Dalton was mine.  My DD.  God couldn’t have him.  Why does that seem so important now?  Because, somehow, in my deepest, darkest time of my life, I was calling on the name of God.  I never felt mad at God, and I still don’t.  I was mad at the idea of giving my son to Him when I needed him more.  The truth was I learned at that moment that I had no control over things.  I was powerless.

That normal Saturday afternoon had turned into anything but normal.

 

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