Every Mothers Worst Nightmare

It was roughly 11:15AM on the morning of Saturday, October 18th, 2014.  I was at work, kids were at daycare, and I got the text message that every mother on earth dreads..."you need to get to my house now."

Frantic, I called...no answer...I texted...no answer...finally I get a call back only to hear my daycare providerm screaming  "NO! NOOO!"  and the line went dead.  I am freaking out.  I called people to come into work for me, praying to God that it waS just a broken bone or the house had caught fire or something but that my kids were safe.  My phone rang a few minutes later, "I'm sorry, Sky, oh my God I am so sorry Sky..." a pause.
"WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE ARE MY KIDS?"
 "The canal...the canal she fell in the canal...."
"WHICH ONE? WHICH ONE?"
"Khyri it was Khyri oh my god Sky I am so sorry!"
"I TRUSTED YOU! I TRUSTED YOU WITH MY KIDS YOU TOLD ME THEY WERE NEVER ALONE!"
"Sky, this is (name omitted) from the sherriff's department.  There has been an accident with yuor daughter Khyri and I need you to get to the hospital."

I rushed to the hospital, mach 60, blew through the doors and started screaming for my daughter...the nurse took me back...and there she was.

Trauma 7.  The room where my world came to a screeching halt.  There were at least 10 doctors and nurses in there, I watched, I waited, I prayed. "Please don't let my baby die, God.  PLEASE DONT LET MY BABY DIE."  I was in and out of the room, trying  to stay out of the way.  Pacing the halls, staring through the window...praying, crying, screaming, trying not to throw up, trying to convince myself of what I already knew was a false hope,  "They are doing the best  they can."  The cops kept telling me.  I went ito the room, I held her tiny hand, I talked to her, I begged her to wake up, thinking that maybe it would be like nap time, where she popped her eyes open as soon as she heard my voice.  I rubbed her feet, stroked her fingers, prayed and cried and watched in horror as the expressions on the doctors faces kept changing.  I watched the monitor, knowing that the heartbeat was only due to CPR and the oxygen level was only because of the tube.  Almost two hours in, the doc came out and told me the worst news..."Ma'am, we are going to keep going, but you need to be aware that even if we find a pulse, she's been without oxygen to her brain for two hours, there's less than a 1% chance that shes going to come out of this, and if she does she will be brain dead...which is essentially...either way...."  and about 15 minutes later, he came out, and told us we could hold her hands while they stopped CPR.  I watched my baby take her last breath at 1:30PM.

About an hour later, they told me that I could hold her.  I held my baby girl for two hours.  I held her, I rocked her, I sang to her, I kept checking, thinking that ther ewas no way she was gone, her pulse was gonna come back.  It didn't.   At 4:30PM I carried my baby out to the van for the funeral home.

I went home, to an empty house, her jammies from that morning still on the couch, chocolate milk spill still in her high chair.  And as I walked past the room that my girls shared, I realized that...this was it...this was going to be the thing that defined the rest of my life...things would never be the same, my baby was gone, and I was totally and completely lost.