We are the lucky ones

During the six weeks we spent in the hospital, many families came and went. But there was one other family--Maverick's family--who arrived six days before us and stayed another three weeks after we left. Our immediate and extended families and friends spent hours and days and weeks together in the hospital waiting room. We cried together, listened to each other, and breathed the same air. Our lives are permanently intertwined because of the experiences we shared at that hospital.

Maverick's mom and I talked on the phone a couple of weeks before Carter was born. They had relocated from the East Bay to Burlingame and we had all hoped to get together, but then life got in the way. There was a message on my machine last Friday from Maverick's mom letting us know that Maverick died on Labor Day. Maverick didn't die from a complication with his heart surgery. Rather, he developed endocarditis (an infection of the heart's valves or its inner lining caused by bacteria or fungi that enter the bloodstream and settle on the inside of the heart). He had the fungal variety. It caused an aneurysm on his pulmonary artery. He developed a terrible cough and he was hospitalized for another month in June. Eventually the aneurysm burst, he started vomiting blood, and then he died.

This Saturday would have been Maverick's first birthday.

Even though the hospital was only a few months back, it now seems like a terrible dream. It's so vivid at times and so fuzzy all at the same time. It's amazing how far we've come from those desperate and dark days in the PCICU, and all I can do it is just marvel at our son and be ever so grateful that he is still a part of our family. He still has so much living to do. With all of the horrible things we've been through and the sadness we still carry, sometimes it's hard to believe that we are the lucky ones.