Mission

I’m dedicated to creating a blog that focuses on life, the ups and downs that come with it, and how one must still move forward.

Just Breathe…one breath, one minute, one hour, one day at a time.

I never really understood what people meant when they said to take it one day at a time until after the death of our first son, Ron. Then shortly after that came the death of our second son, Rustie. This left me devastated, to say the least. I was 20 years old and had no idea how to rationalize what had happened, nor could I help myself out of this state of mind I had found myself in, much less help my husband of 5 years. We were both young and learning what we thought it was to be adults. Then this horrible accident happened. Our lives were upside down and changed forever more.

It was Thanksgiving Day, 1988. My husband had worked the night shift. He came home, and I, barely awake, was on the sofa. He said to get up and get the boys ready for lunch at his parents’ house. He told me he was going hunting and would bathe as soon as he returned. He walked next door to my parent’s house and got my dad and uncle to go hunting at our family farm, which was about 5 miles across town. My dad never went hunting, but this day he did.

I got up, ran a tub of water, and went to get the ironing board out, but being November, I had stacked Christmas presents in the closet in front of it. I told our oldest son, Ron, to get in the tub, and I gave Rustie, the youngest, a bottle and placed him on a pallet. I knew my mom had left her board up, so I ran next door, turned her iron on, and heard a man’s voice at my mom’s front door shout, “This house is on FIRE!” I ran with every ounce of my being out of my parents’ house and to the front door of our home. I shoved the front door open and ran into the fiery, hot, smoke-filled living room. There to my right, I could see Rustie on the floor. I grabbed him, ran to the yard, and laid him on the ground next to a bush in the center of the yard. Then I ran back into the house to find my son, Ron. Yelling, screaming, and calling his name, I quickly scanned the open-concept kitchen and living room. I could see the bathroom door was closed. What I didn’t see was Ron. I then ran out the front door and to the left side of the house. One of my male cousins was disconnecting the propane tank. He had broken the glass out of the bedroom window. I jumped through the bedroom window of the boy’s room. I made my way on my hands and knees to the bathroom door. The heat was so intense I was hurting and holding my breath. I couldn’t get the door open. The ceiling had fell in on the door. I crawled back out the window. I was screaming for help. My mother was wringing her hands on the little dirt driveway between our two houses. I begged her to help me, and all she could say was, “I can’t.” I ran back to my parent’s house to call the fire department. My youngest sister was about 15 years old then; she had dialed the fire department’s number, but stood holding the phone in her hand. She was frozen. She was in shock. I took the phone and told the lady on the other end of the line that I needed help. She asked me to calm down and repeat it one more time. I did, and then back to our house I ran to get Ron. I ran around the house trying to figure out how to get in the bathroom. This was an older wood frame home on pier and beams, and the window was high off the ground. I couldn’t reach it, even standing on things I could find in the yard. By now, I had two men and myself trying to get him out. My aunt and cousin had moved Rustie farther away from the house and started CPR on him. The ambulance arrived, taking Rustie and placing him inside the back. They told me I needed to come to the hospital with him. I would have to sign paperwork for the hospital to treat him. All I could think was: But…but…Ron? Ron was still inside the smoky inferno of a house. Now, I had to choose one son over the other for the first time. What was a mother to do? I stood in the ditch as I saw the first volunteer firefighters start arriving. The ambulance pulled away. I knew in my heart I had to go. I had no idea how my son Ron was or if I could get to him. However, I knew I could sign paperwork for them to treat my son Rustie. Being a small town, the word was out, and spectators were arriving in a hurry. Our long-time friend had come to see what he could do to help. I asked him if he would drive me to the hospital, and he said to get in. In a matter of a few minutes we arrived at the hospital. I got out and our friend told me he was going back to see if he could help.

I walked through the emergency room door alone. One person met me just inside the door and let me know I needed to fill out the papers on the clip board she was handing me. I asked where my son was and she showed me a door. It was closed. She said they had started working on him and that I couldn’t go in yet. I sat down ALONE, CONFUSED, HURT, AND IN TOTAL SHOCK. I looked at the pen stuck in the clip of the clip board and wondered how I was going to manage filling out this paperwork. I didn’t know it until then, but my hands were burned and had water blisters as big as the palm of my hand and each finger tip had blisters. I look up and there, rounding the corner, was my aunt. She worked in the front office of the hospital and heard our names mentioned. She came to see if she could help me. I will never forget that hopeless alone feeling. I had the type of helplessness that feels like your whole world is flashing before your eyes and you can’t do a thing about it. I remember her taking the clipboard and saying she would help me fill out the papers. She would ask me questions and I guess I answered them. I did the best I could. She said, “Sheeta you have to sign it.” I told her, “I can’t.” She carefully placed the pen in my hand and helped me make the strokes forming my name. She said, “That’s good enough. ” She left to go back to the front letting me know she was there if I needed her. From that moment on life became a huge blur. Bits and pieces of the event I remember, but time and order are still not right. At this point does time and order even matter? I mean, even after several years had passed I would still wake up at night thinking of things. I called my dad or a close friend and would ask if the event in my head was real or a dream. Talk about feeling crazy.

Time passed slowly it seemed. More and more people started showing up at the hospital. The staff moved me to the chapel, so there was kind of privacy. I knew why they really moved me. It was because my dad had found Ron and the ambulance was bringing him in the emergency room. They didn’t need me there in the way.

I was feeling claustrophobic in the small chapel. It felt like the walls were closing in on me and all the air was being sucked out. I had to get out! I stood up and walked out of the chapel and on out the front door of the hospital. I turned left and went down to the sidewalks end and sat down. One of my girl friends from high school came and sat beside me. I don’t know if any words were spoke and if they were, I can’t remember what was said. I do remember my dad walking toward me. She and I stood up and my dad looked me in the eyes, his eyes were full of tears, and he said kind of shaking his head side to side, “Ron-Ron is no more.” His voice cracking he says to me again, ” Ron is no more.” I remember the breath leaving my body , my knees buckling, and my disbelief. Then my heart began to race. I wanted to see him. I wanted to get to him. I gained my balance and was headed into the hospital as quickly as my legs would carry me. My dad grabbed hold of me hugging me tight. He said that I had to wait for a few minutes. He said they were working on him.

Notice, I’ve said nothing about my husband. He had been with my dad and uncle hunting. My step-grandma had been called and she went to the farm to get them to come home. I hadn’t seen him to my knowledge at this point. I can’t even remember when I really recall seeing him for the first time. It is called shock. Shock is a situation that affects people in different ways. I was in shock and able to still do most things. I wasn’t able to rationalize things, but I had enough adrenaline pumping to move mountains it felt like.

Some time had passed, and my dad had walked me back into the hospital and into the chapel. I remember seeing my mom and other family members in there, and now, 30 plus years later, I know that my husband came in and was with me. It took me years before I could remember that he was there. My focus wasn’t on him; therefore I couldn’t see him in my mind as I tried reflecting back on things. It’s crazy how the mind works and sets itself up to protect itself; the staff came to the chapel and got us. They told us we could see our son Ron.

I grabbed my dad and with the family we all walked down the hall and into the ER room where Ron was at. There on a stretcher next to the wall lay my beautiful 4- almost 5-year-old baby boy. He looked so perfect except for the black soot in his nose. I remember trying to wipe it off and telling the people in the room if they would clean his nose, he could breathe. I couldn’t understand how he was dead. He didn’t look dead. He looked asleep. He didn’t look hurt or burned or anything. He looked asleep. Wake him up! CLEAN HIS NOSE! HE CAN’T BREATHE! My dad hugged me uptight and walked me out. I just thought I was alone when I got to the hospital. Now I was lost and as alone as a mother could ever be. I didn’t have my baby anymore. How? Why?

I heard someone say to me, “Sheeta, you are bleeding. We need to check on you.” I guess I cut a gash in my right knee by jumping in and out of the window. The nurse walked my husband and me to a room where they could examine me. I remember sitting in a tiny room down the hall from the ER room where our two sons were at. My husband was with me holding my hand. The nurse asked if I wanted numbing medicine. I said, “No.” I told her I was pregnant and couldn’t have any medications. I told them to stitch it without anything. It took ten stitches to close one spot and a few more to close another. I promise, I never felt a thing. I didn’t even know they were finished until they told me they were done, and I could get up. I was still wearing my nightgown and had no shoes on. I didn’t seem bothered by that, either.

When I was finished getting stitches we went back to the chapel and sat on the floor. My husband was holding on to me. We were both so shocked that we didn’t know what to do. People were asking us questions and wanting answers. I know I can’t even remember what all they were even talking about or wanting us to answer. At some point my husband left the room and then the hospital. The funeral director came in the chapel where I was and asked me if he could take my son Ron. I knew the director well. He was the only director in our small town and he knew all the families personally. He was considered and still is one of our family friends. I walked with him to the ER along with others whom I can’t remember.

I waited with him as he prepared our son Ron to be placed in the car. I stood alone by the door at the back of the car. I watched the director and another man as they loaded our son in the car and shut the door. There were other people gathered around the ER door and the car, but I can’t remember them. I do, however, remember looking up after they closed the door to the back of the car and there walking up with clean clothes on and looking very presentable was my husband, his brother and our sister-in-law. I was so upset that he wasn’t with me and I turned and walked back toward the ER door. That vision has stuck with me all the way until now. It upset me then and it still upsets me now. Even though I have learned more about myself and the feelings I had or still have that moment in time left a life long scar.

As I neared the ER door, my grandfather, my mother’s dad, was standing there with his back leaning on the brick wall and one foot propped up under him. He was standing with his hands in his pockets and on the one leg. He took his right hand out of his pocket and placed the contents of his pocket in my hand. He said, “There is more where that came from. You do what you have to do for that other boy.” I kept walking into the hospital. I was directed back into the chapel.

When I got seated in the chapel and looked at my hand my grandfather had placed close to a thousand dollars in my hand. You see, my grand parents had lost a child at the age of 3 or 4 to cancer. He knew loss. He knew that helpless feeling. He knew we were young and didn’t have any money to speak of. I was in college and working retail; while my husband worked at a lumber mill and may have brought home $250 a week. My grandfather knew way more at that moment than my brain had even allowed me to comprehend. All I knew was I had a dead son and one I had not seen since I watched them load him in the ambulance at our burning house around 9:20 A.M.

It wasn’t long after Ron was taken away that the nurse came to tell us that Rustie was going to be transferred to the Shriner’s Burn Institute in Galveston, Texas. They told us to get prepared to leave. They said once life flight landed it wouldn’t take them long and he would be leaving. They said if we wanted to get started driving we could that way we would be there close to the time he arrived. Galveston was at least a 3 1/2 hour drive from the hospital. I still had on a gown and no shoes. No one thought to bring me clothes. Everything I had was destroyed in the fire. One of our aunts didn’t live very far and went to her house and brought back a red jogging suit and someone else gave me their shoes they were wearing. I got dressed and we started making plans to go to Galveston. The decision was made that my husband’s parents would drive us to Galveston while my parents went and dealt with the burning house and the funeral home.

Lifeflight landed. The onboard doctor and nurse quickly made their way inside to Rustie. We still hadn’t seen him and this was many hours later. It was getting to be late afternoon and early evening. One of the staff came out and told us we should get on our way. They would be leaving with Rustie as soon as they made their assessment and he was stable enough to fly. We loaded up in my in-law’s blazer and off we went. I remember my husband and I laying down in the back of the blazer. I, in my first trimester, tired, scared, sad and lost, stared at the sky. I remember the red lights and such going by so fast. My father-in-law must have been traveling pretty fast or everything was just a blur. It wasn’t long and we were in Galveston and were waiting on someone to direct us as where to go. We sat in an empty lobby for what seem like a lifetime. Then someone came and told us Rustie had arrived and we would need to sign some paperwork. It was a huge stack that would take the two of us a while to go through.

I tell you this story to give you some sort of a beginning to my life. A place in time where anxiety, depression, divorce, health issues, drinking, fussing, fighting, cheating, hurt, heartache, and much more began. This is where my husband and I became a statistic. We didn’t have the tools in our life toolbox to fix it, nor change it. I hope you come back to read more of Life! by Sheeta. I pray in some way you find that you aren’t alone or if you know someone that has experienced similar circumstances that you help them seek the light of day. Help them realize they aren’t alone and there is help out there. My counselor has become my best advocate and is teaching me how to survive one breath at a time, one minute at a time, one day at a time. So long for now. I will be back soon with more of LIFE! by Sheeta.