I couldn’t stop crying. “Hey guys,” my words stammered, breaking, voice trembling and cracking. I couldn’t even finish asking them to come out of their rooms. The kids came out to see Jennifer and I standing in the hallway. The words stumbled out, shaking. “Kuya William passed away this morning.” I couldn’t hold it another second, and burst into tears. And the four of us, William’s Mom and his Dad, his brother and his sister, held each other and wept. 

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” – Aeschylus 

Just a little bit earlier, in the Emergency Department at GBMC, I made a call I never imagined I’d ever have to make. Through tears, trying to catch my breath, “Mom? William passed away.”

I don’t remember what she said. I remember she cried, and I remember she asked if we wanted her to come there to be with us. The day after William was born, I picked my Mom up at LAX. We found each other by the baggage claim, the bright sun lighting up the whole area. It was August still, but just barely. Like it is today as I write this. But 18 years ago my face cracked and I broke down right there at the airport. Relieved to see her, grateful that my Mom came. It might have been the first time I really cried hard, hugging her tight, not knowing what was going to happen with our baby. 

We would find out later that afternoon, that William had a very bad bleed in his brain. On a scale of I to IV, with IV being the most severe, William had a Grade IV Intraventricular Hemorrhage. Dr. Vo’s eyes welled up with tears as she shed the news, the nurse with her started crying too. Jen and her Mom, along with my mom all cried, groaning with heartache, hugging each other on the bed.

“Lord, if only you were here, my brother would not have died.” I imagine Mary in angry desperation, both furious and devastated that her brother was dead. I was always moved by Jesus’ response, the shortest sentence in the Bible. “And Jesus wept.”

There is a translation of that moment, from the Greek. Embromaomai. It means that His heart was wrung with so much anguish, such deep heartache, that a painful groan escaped from his lips. It is reassuring to know that our God is a compassionate, feeling God. One who suffers with us. Compassion, from the Latin. With us in suffering. In the sequel to her book “The Sparrow”, Mary Doria Russell describes a scene where the protagonist, a former priest is visited by the Pope, asking for his help. The protagonist, Emilio Sandoz feels bitter and betrayed, after being subject to incredible hardship. The Pope tries to soothe Sandoz, explaining that while God had asked him to sacrifice so much, “God wept as he asked it of you.”

After a while, I looked up from holding Jen and the kids. My brother Brian stood at the foot of the steps. His face crumpled into tears as well. I went down and hugged him and cried. Over this past weekend, I explained to him, one of the great joys of my life. Seeing Mom and Dad’s utter and sheer joy with their grandchildren. One by one, seeing their faces overcome with happiness as they held little bundles. Then waddling toddlers, then small children and so on. It was something my close friend Steve had once said. How he loved being able to give his parents that. To be able to somehow give them joy. I loved, and love it still too. Although we were worried for William from the beginning, including a tearful baptism in the middle of his NICU, that we rushed because we thought William might pass away any minute, with every moment afterwards I was amazed to see the gift of a grandson to his grandparents. The first time they held him, I think was with yellow isolation gowns. We have pictures of their beaming and proud faces. Memories of them visiting us in California, seeing him at school, or getting on the bus, taking him for walks at home after we moved back to Maryland, being there for his First Communion, and so many more. Sometimes even just walking with him in the fading orange and red and yellows of a summer sunset, it was always so pure in joyful emotion.

This time the phone call was not like that. It wasn’t as if we were withdrawing William from their lives. It was a poignant realization that as always, with our joys as well as our sorrows, my Mom, my Dad, our parents as grandparents shared in the soaring highs, and now, the darkest low. The deepest sadness of compassion. Of embromaomai.

I never would have even thought, or imagined that losing a child would be so much like having a child. There is a terrible symmetry to it. With all of our children I remember the very stressful and almost chaotic births. The rush of emotion, of relief and joy and disbelief. And then holding them. At least for Matthew and Hope. In the ED, it was horribly similar. It all happened so fast. Before I knew it. The doctor called the time. The staff gave us space. We sobbed, hugging and kissing, and holding William in our arms. We held him like a baby. He was always our baby. He will always be my baby. 

Like his birth, but different in that I dreaded every moment. Every step. When we called my Mom. When we saw our neighbors as we pulled into our driveway and shared the news. When, through blurry vision and sobbing voices, we let his siblings know. When we let our families know. We made calls and sent texts. The day and the time. Family came over and brought food. When Jen’s siblings arrived just a few days later, they brought chicken empanadas from Red Ribbon. I have such clear memories of eating them the night that William was born. Our Ninong Jun and Ninang May brought them to us, in our dark room in Pomona. Apart from our new baby William who fought for his life several floors below in the NICU. Thousands of miles away from our parents. Ninong and Ninang brought happiness and celebration and food. In truth, I had never ever liked pancit palabok, and after moving to Southern California just a few months before and being disappointed, I didn’t like Red Ribbon’s chicken empanadas either. But that night, they were the most delicious foods I had ever tasted. And I’ve loved them ever since. So eating them again, through tears, with family around us just like after his birth, was not lost on me. 

The announcement on Facebook, the hundreds of replies. The prayers and thoughts, the love and genuine care. The complete buoying of support by our family and friends. Our faith. 

There were painful pangs of emotion that caught me off guard after William was born. Seeing moms in wheelchairs, holding their babies, bring wheeled to the curb to their cars to go home. And then there was us, walking to our car in the parking lot. Coming home to an empty and silent house. One of the hardest moments was standing in church after mass, as they made an announcement for all families interested in baptism to come up to the front. Jen and I stood, with tears streaming down our faces, shoulders shaking as we cried, watching beaming couples carrying their babies in carseats, excitedly walking up the aisle to the front. Those moments were soon displaced, as we thought about William’s future. What we would be doing, how our family would be. Hopes and dreams.

I’m caught in a similar way once again. This weekend as I talked with Sam, and remembered our warm summer evening walks on the panhandle together, I could feel myself getting choked up as I remembered William, so vividly with us. I’m grateful that the memory is so strong. His presence is still there. Out there, on the panhandle. In the past, in the warm glow of sunset, he still walks with us. I know he is there even now, and will be with us when I walk out there again. I feel the urge right now to drive out and be with him.

Now, these moments are met with futures that I do not want to face. Going back to school. William’s 18th birthday this Sunday. Our first Halloween without him. Our first Thanksgiving without him. Our first Christmas without him. And unlike before when hopes and possibilities drew us into the future, I find myself constantly pulled deep into memories in the past. I remember being so scared when he first went to school with William, sitting in the back of his classroom. Or following his bus. His small wheelchair dwarfed by the wheelchair lift that had picked him up. He was only three! I remember eating crabs and sisig at his first birthday party in Redwood City, all of us wearing our matching shirts to celebrate Year One. I remember being so grateful for his first Thanksgiving. Even though he was still in the NICU, we had a turkey and Stove Top and instant mashed potatoes at home. His Ninong Chris spent that Thanksgiving dinner with us. I will invite him to spend Thanksgiving with us again this year, 18 years later. I remember taking William out on that hot Halloween, wearing this awesome turtle costume we got from Old Navy. His face came out of the turtles mouth and the rest was covered. And it was hot. It was dark and I was wearing a tank top. And William was a turtle, drenched inside with sweat. His little sweaty head. William’s first Christmas was in a PICU, just three days after he had stopped breathing at home due to a shunt malfunction and increased pressure inside of his brain. He was taken to the ER at Pomona, then sent to Loma Linda Children’s Hospital. My Mom cried when Jen opened the door to meet them after visiting us again, hugging Jen as our little baby was once again apart from us. That time, nearly dying. 

That happened again and again, but this time, instead of nearly dying, William was gone. Mik breaking down at the door when he arrived the day William passed away. Inky doing the same. Dad sobbing at the door when he came in. Jaclyn, and Jen’s parents. Papa Tony breaking down when we arrived in Redwood City, as we all sat down to eat lunch around their kitchen table. 

I heard once that when we weep, whether in joy or in sorrow, we weep with both. We weep for what is, as well as what may have been. We wept in joy after his birth, often with gratitude. Grateful that he was still with us, how close it was that he could have died. Relieved in knowing that we could have been weeping in sorrow. This time, we wept with the feeling of loss, recognizing the very real and tangible presence William always gave to us. Painfully missing the joy we once wept with.

I feel silly, foolish. I feel foolish for having the arrogance to think that I was taking good care of William just two days before he passed. I felt proud, smug maybe, that “this is what I became a nurse for”. I gave him baths to cool him down, took his temperature and vitals. Cleaned and changed him. I was a NICU nurse and a Pediatric nurse. I became that just for him. He tested positive for COVID on a Sunday, and he looked exactly how I had felt not long before. I felt like I knew what was going on. I felt like I knew how he felt. So stupid. I thought I was giving him great care. I thought I was being a great nurse. I thought I was being a great dad.

The morning I saw him was a Wednesday. I came out of the bathroom, not even five minutes since seeing him sleeping peacefully, even less than the time when Jennifer had kissed him goodbye for work. I knew immediately, as I saw him across his room. I came over and could tell he wasn’t breathing. His lips were already less pink. I tried to listen and feel with my ear. The air was still, and my own heart pounded in my ears. I put my ear to his chest, feeling his soft skin, still warm. I started compressions right away. I remember thinking that if I cracked his ribs or injured him, we would just deal with it then. One and two and two and two and three and two and… I was going to pump that heart and circulate oxygen to his body. I was going to save my son. I gave him breaths, saw his chest rise, felt the air easily enter his mouth as I pinched his nose close. I was doing a great job resuscitating him. I was a real nurse. 

Jen had the 911 operator on the phone and she was trying to give me directions. My arrogance made me feel like I knew what I was doing. I was a nurse. I was a proud nurse that was going to save my son. After a few cycles of compressions and breaths I could feel some panic. I’ve always remained calm, at least on the outside during codes, but this time I could feel my emotion break through. My eyes welled up with tears as I tried to steel myself and keep it together. I had never cried during a code. But there I was, tears streaming down my face as I compressed over him. As I administered effective CPR. Watching myself compress his chest and letting it rise completely, all while staring at William’s face. His mouth open, eyes closed. 

I would keep it together mostly for the next few minutes. As EMT’s and firefighters and police came in. I heard them start the AED and listening to the voice commands. I heard it at least twice through. I saw the IO in his shin. I knew he was depressed, he was down. But it was calm. And mostly I was, but sometimes voice cracking and tears starting up as I talked to the men there. I would hear them say quietly to one another, “Dad is a nurse”. Later on in the ED, after it was all over, I would be worried that his skin would tear, since those AED pads were so sticky on his chest. 

18 years ago, when he coded at home, just three days before Christmas, I would come home later to see the aftermath. I was with Brian that day too, when I got Jen’s call. We were both on our way to LMU, turned around and met Jen with William in the ER at Pomona Valley. After seeing him there, stuck so many times and with police, fire and EMS all around, we left to go back home. I cried in my brothers arms in the parking lot. When we got to our tiny duplex in Claremont, the floor was still riddled with syringes and packaging, as Claremont Police had unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate him on the floor. When we came home from the hospital this time, I was surprised to see how cleaned up William’s room looked. Even a tray of sunglasses and stuff by our garage door, that had been knocked over by one of the firefighters, was placed back, everything back inside. 

A week later I would stand in front of our laundry room, just a few steps away and burst into tears, telling Jen that “I couldn’t save him!!!” I couldn’t. I didn’t. Did I miss something? Was I too proud, thinking so much of myself as a good nurse? Did I miss something earlier? Was I out of my league, my element? Was I practicing outside of my license? Was I not good enough?

I always told everyone, that I knew I became a nurse to irrationally change the past. To save my son. The feeling that I could change something, have control over something, and be there for William was a tremendous propulsion, accelerant in my life. Now the fuel was burned. The pain that cannot forget smolders, and I’m trying to get a spark back. 

I’m painfully aware that like so many others, I took care of babies and families during COVID. Moms that had COVID. Babies we thought that did. Nurses that were terrified, not only about COVID but how to follow new procedures and processes. And through all that time, through all those people, I lost my own son to it. I feel so sorry for my friends, who take care of people and their emotions, are injured so deeply with loss as well. Colleagues who have spent decades saving thousands of babies, losing their own children over the past few years. 

It feels cruel. The irony? I know it is not cruel. And I’m not angry or something with God about that. I guess it is the free will of the world. I cannot yet feel what Stephen Colbert had once said, “I love the thing I wish most had not happened.” And I cannot yet appreciate Tolkien’s query, “are not all God’s punishments also gifts?”. But I will. Just not now.

I have told countless parents, friends even, about having a baby in the NICU. Every day I felt like I couldn’t do it again. Every morning I didn’t know how I would get through another day. And every night I couldn’t believe I got through another one. And at some point, that changed. I don’t know when. So I’ve felt this before. I’ve been in a place when I could not see very far. 

This most recent season of Stranger Things features “Running Up That Hill”, originally meant to be titled “A Deal with God” by Kate Bush. The song was popular almost 40 years ago, but I don’t think I listened to it back then.

And if I only could

I’d make a deal with God

And I’d get him to swap our places

Be running up that road

Be running up that hill

Be running up that building

If I only could

It’s been on my mind because if I could, make a deal with God, I’d ask him to swap our places. Maybe the world would be a better, brighter place. But as it is, you’re left with me. Next month, I will begin a form of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. I understand that sometimes in deep prayer and contemplation, God reveals Himself to us through the content of our lives. Certainly, through these painful epiphanies, I am able to see symmetry in William’s life, and maybe like the song, like the very seasons, things come back around, I’ll see a little bit farther than I can today.