I Only Miss You When I Breathe

To be 8 years old was so hard for Christopher

He started out a happy healthy 8 year old. This is where our lives started to crumble their dad had an accident and became addicted to prescription pain medication. He was a great dad to the boys who were 8 and 4 now but became violent towards me. He loved to take the boys fishing so we went for a family weekend to the beach. Things were going well their dad was doing well until one tragic moment. We had called the kids to eat and they had just finished and asked to go back in the water. Their dad cautioned them to look both ways and before they took off my husband looked up and a jeep was headed straight for Christopher. Doug screamed his name and he turned to look at his dad at that time the jeep struck him in the back bringing him airborne and striking the hood with his head. Christopher landed crumpled on the ground silent. We went running and I grabbed my baby. He was out of it and began to cry. The man that struck him left his driver's license and left the scene. We could see alcohol in the vehicle. As he was leaving he said I'm sorry I had a fight with my wife and my mind was out of it. We took Christopher to the ranger station to get help we were in the middle of no where and back then you didn't have cellphones. The ranger called fire department for quick help, highway patrol to search for the man that hit him and for an ambulance. The firemen took great care of him they said he had a traumatic closed head injury. The ambulance got there and that was when the highway patrolman told us Doug and my youngest son would have to stay back as a witness. The hardest thing was getting on that ambulance and fearing my baby was going to die. When we got to the hospital family and friends started holding vigil for Christopher. They transferred him to the children's hospital in Houston. The next morning that happy well adjusted child woke up a different person. That happy healthy well adjusted smart little boy always struggled to surface. He spent 9 months in the hospital before he came home. After his long recovery he started talking to DWI offenders with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers he would hold up a picture of him before he got hit and he would tell them that kid died that day. I understood that because I was grieving for that child too. He struggled so hard to reach inside and pull that funny, kind hearted, comical person out. I think that is part of what made him so special he understood that darkness better than I did. He taught me so much.