Keeping Our Promise

I haven’t updated in a while. Part of me is reluctant to post anything else here, as to me, this was a place to put Rowan’s story. In many ways, his story is over. His legacy and memory may not be, but his life is.

Wednesday, we went to the Schlotzsky’s at 71st and Lewis. They were donating 20% of the receipts from dinner to CHAMP Camp, a camp for children with CHD. We walked in with our daughter, ordered, and walked right over to put our receipt in.

We were intercepted by a Child Life Specialist from St. Francis that I recognized, as well as an employee from Schlotzsky’s who offered to explain what they were doing and what CHAMP Camp was. I smiled and said, “Our son actually died from a heart defect. We came tonight to support CHAMP camp.” The child life specialist noticed my daughter dancing in the booth waiting for her cheese pizza and commented on how much she’d grown.

And it made me step back for a second.

10 months. It’s been 10 months.

And if you were sitting in Schlotzsky’s and saw our family come in, you would have thought we were a happy family with a very lively daughter. You wouldn’t have thought there was a cloud following us or that we were suffering. Because we are a happy little family. We love being together and we have fun. We enjoy life.

And there were so many times in the last ten months that I didn’t believe we’d ever be that again.

But we are living the way we learned to live with our son. We enjoy each other. We treasure the time we spend. We smile. We laugh.

And we remember our time with Rowan warmly. We talk about the fun games we played. We talk about how silly he was. We look at pictures and hand prints and sing Rowan’s lullaby when we’re tired.

We didn’t get here alone. We had a wonderful therapist. My parents really helped Doc and I by always watching our daughter when we needed to take care of ourselves and our marriage. I have some incredible friends who have supported me and listened when I needed clarity and kindness. We put one foot in front of the other, but there were lots of people cheering us on.

I love my son. I miss my son. But we’re going to be ok. I promised him that. When he was dying, I told him it was okay for him to go. I told him we would be sad, but we would be ok. And I kept that promise.

We finally received Rowan’s autopsy report yesterday. From what we can tell, there is nothing revolutionary or revealing. We are going to try to find a pathologist who can interpret some of it for us, but I think no more answers are out there. But that was it, the last housekeeping thing. We’ve tied up all the unfinished business now.

For those of you in the Tulsa area, the Schlotzsky’s at 71st and Lewis is going to try to do another fundraiser on Wednesday, June 5th from 5-9pm. We will be there. I’d hope to see you too. I’m ready to get back out there and support heart families and the CF community. I hope to see familiar faces.