My Special Brother
Every afternoon I get a few minutes of quality time with my girls where they give me a re-cap of their day. Now I won't lie, sometimes I tune them out. Little girls tend to have A LOT to say and sometimes I don't have enough concentration brain cells to keep up. But most of the time I enjoy their chatter and I know from experience the teenagers aren't always so chatty so you have to take it while you can! Emmy came home today and announced she was going to the basement (to watch Supernatural, of course) and I wasn't to bother her. Hardly said two words to me.
Today's chatter was extra special. Kloe wanted to read to me--first in Spanish--her personal narration project about a real life experience for her Spanish class. Even in Spanish I could understand quite a bit of what she was saying and it was clear she was speaking from her heart. Then she translated it into English for me and I recorded it below...
My Special Brother
Hi, my name is Kloe I'm going to talk to you about the time I first saw my brother. His name is Kevin but my family calls him Baby Kevin. I'm going to tell you my experience. December 24th, 2011, this was the big day. The day before Christmas is my Mom's birthday and this year we went to Little America for breakfast. When we finished my Mom told us the big news. She was going to have a baby! When we finished our breakfast we went to our house and then my mom asked us who wanted to go to the Dr's office with her. Me, my sister Emmy, and my Dad went with my mom. The Dr couldn't see the baby because he was in a weird position and she couldn't see if he was a boy or girl for sure but she did think there was a 80% chance it was a boy and a 20% chance it was a girl. And that was good news because my family had 5 girls and 2 boys at the time. But the Dr didn't say everything. Two days later we left for Arizona to see our Aunt and Uncle. On January 9th 2012 me and my sister Gracie came home from school and my mom was sitting on her bed crying. She had been back to the Dr and said that it was a boy but he has something called Trisomy 13 and he's probably not going to live but if he does live he'll have lots of problems and it's possible that he could die in her stomach.
May 10th, 2012, Baby Kevin's Birthday
All of my brothers and sisters and me were in school and everyone got the same call that we needed to go home. My Grandma Jan said that we needed to get to the hospital immediately and she drove us all there. She told us something wasn't right with the baby. When we went into the room where my mom was, everyone was crying. My Grandparents were all there and my brother had only lived for one hour and thirty minutes and me and my brother and sisters didn't get to see him alive except for Jackson, my oldest brother. But I did get to hold him and as I was holding him it kept going through my mind how great it would be to be able to take care of him like I helped with Janie and Lilly. I remember thinking for a long time ever since Janie was born how badly I wanted a little brother and all my cousins and my friends all have little brothers and they are so sweet. When my mom said she was having a little boy I was so happy, I can't even explain the feeling, it was so great. But when I got to the hospital and he had died my heart broke and felt like it was gone.
May 19th, 2012, The Funeral
All my family came from the two sides, my Mom's and my Dad's. We buried him in Malad, Idaho with my Great Grandma Ona Moon and her son Boyd who also died as a baby. Me and my sisters and my cousin played a song on our violins. The song was called I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ. After the funeral me and my family sat and talked about how we felt and how much we appreciate each other more and how grateful we are for our Baby Kevin. When we finished we went to go eat at a place called The Dude Ranch. Now every time we go visit Idaho we go visit his grave and we eat at The Dude Ranch. But just because he died doesn't mean we won't see him again or that he won't be a part of our family. Now we have 5 girls and 3 boys. It might be sad that he died but we know we'll see him again. That day I felt sad, happy and a little frustrated. I didn't know it would be so hard losing a brother or sister. When we were at the graveside I guess I didn't really think of how much I loved my family because I was bawling.
And that's the story of my warrior brother and my family has him in our memory and in our hearts every day and we celebrate his life on the 10th of every month.
