Chapter 25

“And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:20

Sunday December 6 was a relaxing day. Bruce and I were staying at the lake an extra day but had not told Roma. I always wanted him to think we could be home at any minute. Old habits die hard, and I was not sure we could trust Roma’s behavior, despite his recent good intentions. Bruce texted him mid-afternoon, to see if he was still working. When he confirmed he was, Bruce texted him to “be very careful, because he had fallen off a ladder the day before, and only by the grace of God, he was not hurt at all.” Bruce was still praising God that he was not even sore the day after his fall.

As Bruce and I were preparing to go to a friend’s house for dinner, my phone rang at 5:10. Like all monumental moments in life, I remember every detail beginning at that moment. I was stepping out the side door with my phone in my hand. For some reason, I began to shake even before I looked at the caller’s name. It was a neighbor back in Maryland. That name should have caused no alarm. As I was answering, I was hoping the call was about wall paint colors. I had helped this neighbor choose a color a few weeks earlier, and she said she would invite me down to see the room when she was finished painting. But alarms were already going off in my head before I said hello.

“Hey Debbie, are you at home?” I breathed deeply. Okay, this sounded exactly how our last conversation had started before she asked me over to suggest a paint color. I was hoping she was inviting me to see the finished project.

“No, we’re at the lake,” I said with my heart pounding, hoping against hope she had paint on her mind. But her voice sounded strained. She paused too long.

“There is a police car in your driveway. The officer’s been standing on your porch for a while and looking in your windows,” she said.

“I’m afraid something has happened to Roma,” I blurted out. “I’ll call you right back.”

Roma, November 30, 2015

I texted Roma, “Call me!” and a split second later, “Now!”

Nothing. I knew there would be no answer. As I listened desperately to the cosmos in which Roma and I had experienced profound connectedness, there was a terrifying silence. The sacred cord that always held Roma and me together was severed, dangling in a world without gravity. I could no longer hear his spirit, no longer feel his energy. I knew my boy was gone.  

I had to think. I had to act. Maybe I was wrong. Why did I keep jumping to this conclusion?

I called Taylor at work, explaining that police were in our driveway, could he run home and see what they needed? We were three hours away, and there was a policeman on our front porch. I didn’t share my sure presumption of his little brother’s fate. Maybe it had nothing to do with Roma. I had to maintain hope. Taylor was heading home to address the police officer, and he had no idea why.

I called my neighbor back, asking if she could walk over to my house and give the policeman my cell number.

A few minutes later, my phone rang. I handed it to Bruce because I could not talk. He put it on speaker as the officer introduced himself and confirmed my fear. “Are you the father of Roman Michael?”

“Yes.” Bruce said breathlessly.

“There’s been an accident. Your son came in contact with electrical wires and fell from a ladder. He has sustained a head injury. He is on route to the shock trauma hospital in Baltimore. All I know is he was breathing on his own when they left the scene of the accident. You can reach the hospital at this number.”

I was already face down in a chair, on my knees, sobbing, pleading with God to rewind the afternoon. “Please God, no, please, no, please no. Let him be okay.”  

Like a caged animal, I paced as Bruce dialed the hospital. I tried to listen to the doctor over the beating of my heart. “Your son has sustained a devastating head wound. This injury is not compatible with life.”

This injury is not compatible with life.

Somehow, I knew that truth before he spoke those words. I couldn’t avoid flashing back to the image in my dark closet a few weeks early, when I imagined I saw Roma fall from the ladder. I was unaware of Bruce’s presence, his own shock and disbelief as he was processing the unthinkable. I never shared my fear I had experienced in that dark closet.

In total numbness, I went upstairs and packed our stuff to go home. Bruce called the couple who had invited us to dinner to tell them why we would not be there for dinner. We walked out of the house at 6 p.m. and managed to find our way to the car. Shock Trauma in Baltimore was 200 miles away.

While Bruce drove in silence, I texted away, spraying prayer requests in all directions. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as the doctors thought. God could save Roma. I had faith that He could.  I sent text messages to our older children because I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t even think where they might be, in what activity they might involved when they received my grave message. But I could not yet speak this news aloud. Bruce called a few people, a friend from church who would get the word out, and his sister.  After a while, when I thought I could talk, I called my sister in North Carolina. I wanted to call my mother. But she was already in Heaven. She would be there to greet her youngest grandchild.

It was not like the movies. I didn’t cry in long jags. Only in short hysterical spurts. Then I was in numb silence. The three-and-a-half-hour ride was surreal, and much faster than I would have anticipated. We were suddenly parking at the hospital lot, before10 p.m.

When we parked and went to the family waiting area, I was in that protective fog God mercifully devises for our protection at times of devastating grief. I remember hearing myself telling a kind and sympathetic nurse what an honor it had been to be Roma’s mom. I told Bruce that we were not going to have any guilt because we had loved Roma completely, without reservation. No one could have loved him more. I was confident he always knew he was dearly cherished.

Two friends drove an hour to meet us as we arrived at Shock Trauma. Our pastor and another friend were already waiting with Roma for our arrival. Kathy met us with a teary hug, saying she did not want Roma to be alone while we drove to reach him. She was wearing a green sweatshirt the color of my morning light.

That morning seemed like years ago now. That color again. Was there a connection? I walked and talked as if in a dream.

We were guided back to room number seven, where Roma lay secured with a head brace, a ventilator covering this badly bruised and swollen face, machines keeping time with the heart they assisted. Bruce thought I might not want to go in and see him like that. But I had to see my boy. 

He was so warm as I leaned over him, my arm across his chest, to talk in his ear, to tell him how much I loved him, always had, always would.

Some of his friends called me, having heard the news or having called his phone that the police officer had left with Taylor. Our dear older son answered the constantly ringing phone and broke the devastating news to incredulous friends. Roma’s friends called me, one by one, sobbing. I held the phone to Roma’s ear, so each could speak to him of their love and say their final goodbyes. I stood like a robot by his bed, occasionally weeping, in a nightmare world wondering how news travels so fast, and hoping that maybe this was a horrid nightmare.

We met with the doctor who confirmed Roma would not survive. He asked about organ donation. He said that after a brain scan in the morning, they would determine a time of death, then Roma’s organs would be harvested, as he had stated his wishes on his driver’s license. 

How could we be calmly sitting around a table with complete strangers talking about such grim topics as brain death and organ harvesting in the same sentence with my vibrant and beautiful Roma? Surely, I thought, this will be different in the morning when I wake up from this dream.

We couldn’t leave his side, and yet difficult things had to be done. My head was spinning. Our children had to make plans to return. I could hardly comprehend all we needed to do. We headed home just after midnight, with plans to return first thing in the morning.  Hopefully by then we could say this day had only been dream, a horrible nightmare. But I knew there would be no such awakening. 

“Okay, Bruce,” I offered our battle plan as we left Baltimore. “The next couple of days will be the worst of our lives. But we can make it. Together. God is still good.”

My childhood Sunday School memorization came back to me.  The 23rd Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me ” 

We slept fitfully. I was up often checking messages. Sending emails, answering texts. On Facebook, hundreds of posts about Roma exploded on my newsfeed. At first, they were vague and cryptic, “praying for your family,” messages. Private messages frantically asked what in the world was going on.

I suddenly remembered with a fresh wave of anguish, Liana and Lia, Roma’s first sister and aunt, who we had found less than a year earlier in Russia and the Republic of Georgia. We were now Facebook friends. They had been filled with joy and hope over finding their long-lost brother and nephew.  I didn’t want them to learn on Facebook that we lost Roma, so soon after they found him. One private message from the mother of one of Roma’s friends asked how she could help. I gave her the assignment of asking Roma’s friends to refrain from posting and/or remove their posts about Roma until I could notify Liana and Lia. 

I didn’t trust the online translator I used, for it often had odd translations. I composed a message as unambiguous and sensitive as I could and emailed it to my daughter Kellie to have a Russian-speaking friend translate it. Her compassionate friend sent it back translated almost immediately. As soon as I got that back, I sent Liana and Lia messages with the unimaginable news I knew would break their hearts too. 

Then I shared our incomprehensible news on Facebook to answer the growing concerns and questions, and to ask for prayers for our devastated family. The outpouring of love, sorrow, and compassion poured on our family through social media was a healing balm. Somehow, I gained encouragement from former teachers, school principals, people known and unknown, near and far, who sent messages of what Roma meant to them.

Roma was never just our family’s son. He was a gift to all of us.

Continue with Chapter 26