How does a mother come to grips with knowing she may be living the final days — or even hours — of her baby’s life?
How does a mother come to grips with knowing she may be living the final days — or even hours — of her baby’s life?
What do you do with that time?
What do you say?
How do you hold your child knowing you may soon have to let him go?
Alejandra Cordova reached back out to me from South Texas with the update she had prayed she would never have to give.
Her baby boy, Emiliano Ezekiel, went into cardiac arrest Friday.
He survived the arrest, but Alejandra says he suffered devastating brain damage.
Despite everything doctors have done, she says they have told the family that Emiliano is not going to recover.
Now his mother is confronting something no parent is prepared for: saying goodbye to her baby.
“I feel lost without him and I don’t wish this upon anyone,” Alejandra told me.
“I tried my best but God had other plans for me and him.”
If Emiliano’s name sounds familiar, it’s because many of you prayed for him when I first shared his story last month.
He was only 9 months old then.
Born prematurely at 32 weeks after an emergency C-section, Emiliano had spent virtually his entire little life fighting.
Chronic lung disease.
A tracheostomy.
A ventilator and oxygen to help him breathe.
A VP shunt.
Pneumonia, a staph infection and MRSA.
Around-the-clock nursing care and more than a dozen medical specialists.
When I asked Alejandra in July what frightened her most, she gave me an answer I haven’t forgotten:
“Our biggest fear is losing Emi before he has the chance to experience the life every child deserves.”
Now, less than a month later, that fear has become this mother’s reality.
And I keep thinking about what these final moments must feel like.
When the medical fight is ending, how does a parent begin to do the impossible?
Alejandra told me she doesn’t have the right words right now.
I don’t think anyone could expect her to.
So perhaps we can help provide some of the words she cannot find.
If you have walked through the loss of a child, or have helped someone through their final hours with someone they loved, what helped you get through those moments?
What do you wish someone had told you?
What memory are you grateful you made while you still had the chance?
Please be gentle with this mother. Leave Alejandra a prayer, some love or something she can hold onto as she prepares to say goodbye to Emiliano.
