06/09/2025
This is a heartbreaking story and so very important to be shared. Everyone thinks it could never happen to them. Until it does.
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As I sit here this morning, trying to figure out what new thing I can post that will open your eyes to the risks of drowning, my mind is struggling to focus, because my heart ache is bleeding so loudly in my brain.
My baby should be turning 12 years old tomorrow. But he is forever frozen at 3.
Drowning took my baby from me, silently, while I turned my head to check that my other kids were ok in the water. In less than 2 minutes I found him face down in the water and my world collapsed around me.
2 days, a dozen tubes all through his body, and 4 heart attacks later, my child went to heaven before me.
He should be going to 7th grade in August. But he won’t. I exist now in the “should be’s” and “should haves”, “supposed to be’s” and “would haves”. I forever have one foot here and one in heaven.
Holidays ache. Calendars and clocks take me farther from my child….the years separate us as I know less and less of who he would be, what he would like, what he wouldn’t like, what he would be good at and what he would struggle with. The gap gets wider and louder as the clock ticks by.
I hate September. I hate September because it stole my boy from me. I want to wipe it off the calendar and never have to live it again. But I relive my worst nightmare every September anyway, because I have no choice. I relive his drowning. I relive the blaring beeps of the life support machines that screamed at me that I lost him. I relive being told nothing can reverse the damage from drowning and that IF he lived, he would never be the boy he was.
No mom should ever hear those words.
I hate June. I used to love June. It was the month that gave my boy life. But now it mocks me every time it comes around. I have to face another birthday with no birthday boy. It empties my soul to have to do that, over and over again.
A silent, uneaten cake. No presents to give my own child because he isnt here and because I don’t even know what he would like anymore. I don’t think 12 year old boys love paw patrol like 3 year old boys do.
I also hate June…and July…and August because it’s when we see so many children being stolen by drowning.
I hate walking by so many unfenced backyard pools. I hate seeing kids in flotation devices in the pools while parents think they are doing the best thing for their kids with those things. I hate learning how bad they are only AFTER my child drowned. I hate when parents don’t listen to why they are bad in pools and take their chances in the name of convenience-until it almost happens to their child too.
I hate how flotation devices are the go to and not swim lessons. I hate that humans always think it can’t happen to them. I hate how they assume that if it happens it’s because the parent “let their child swim without them watching”. I hate how these parents may lose their children because they refuse to see the reality that most drownings happen when kids aren’t supposed to be in the water.
My son drowned when he wasn’t supposed to be in the water. He was supposed to be out, resting beside me. He snuck back in when I turned to count other little heads, thinking he was with me-and that’s all it took.
I hate that tomorrow I will face the start of what should be another year of my child’s life, without him. This will be the 9th time I have had to live through this special day-not planning a party-not buying presents-deafening silence and muffled tears filling the space where laughter should be.
So I sit here, thinking, planning new ways and new ideas to help you keep this life from being yours too.
I hope you will read this post. I hope you will step into my shoes for just a minute and feel the pain for just a second. And I hope it forces you to act….to do the hard, to do what is needed so that your child can live the life that was taken from my boy.
I hope that your life is not like mine.
May your summer be safe around water. May you get your child the lessons they deserve. May your pools be protected. May your eyes always be on your kids and your arms never too far away to reach them.
May you be able to share every one of their birthdays with your child for the rest of your life.
If you want to help me honor my son tomorrow, on his 12th birthday, give your children the things I didn’t know to give my boy, until it was too late for him.
