The Passing of Samuel Cole
Today marks one year since we lost Samuel.
We’ve never shared much about his passing except to some close friends and family. I’m guessing there’s some curiosity about it but no one ever asks.
Which I totally get. I’d never ask someone for a play by play of the passing of a loved one. But it’s kind of a cool story, so I thought today made sense to share it. If it’s a weird thing to discuss, no hard feelings if you don’t read on.
We arrived home from the hospital with Samuel at around 1:30 in the afternoon on June 5th. It’s a situation NO ONE had anticipated. In all of our planning with our doctors, nurses and hospice, that possibility was never discussed. Sarah had to ride in the back seat clutching Samuel in her arms. We had never imagined we’d need a car seat.
At about 6:30, Sarah pulled me aside and told me she felt like Samuel was fading. The color was draining from his face and she could just tell his time with us was running out, in a way perhaps only a mother could know.
I realized we hadn’t taken a family photo at our house yet. With a sense of urgency I gathered my camera equipment and scouted a place in our back yard to take the most important picture of our lives.
I recruited my dad to take our picture while dialing in the camera settings and firing test shots of Sarah and Samuel in place.
“Hurry, hurry. Zach, hurry!” Sarah said with increasing urgency.
I handed off the camera and rushed to her side.
“I think he’s gone.”
From the first minutes after Samuel was born, every breath he took made a faint cry. Our doctors told us it was related to a respiratory condition that was just another in a long list of problems he was facing, but that it didn’t cause him any pain.
It was Samuel’s way of reassuring us with each breath that he was still with us.
But now he was silent.
“It’s too hard, I can’t hold him. Take him,” Sarah plead.
I took him in my arms and immediately felt Samuel’s motionless body. His face was white. His breathing over. His eyes open but motionless.
In some ways it was a perfect ending. We were outside on a peaceful day and he had passed staring up at heaven.
We said our goodbyes to him. “We love you. You’re so strong. You’re the bravest person we’ve ever known. We’re proud of you. You can go, it’s ok. We can’t wait to hold you in our arms again someday. We love you so much.”
I was glad my parents were still there to be with us in that moment. Sarah’s mom and sister were just a few minutes down the road and we called them to come back.
We felt an overwhelming sense of peace. An outcome delayed yet sudden. But it was perfect.
“I can finally give my son a real hug,” I said.
With his fragile condition, I had never given him a strong embrace. So I swallowed him in my arms and gave him a big, fatherly, final squeeze.
He made a sound.
Guilt flooded over me as I flashed back to when I was a kid terrifying my sisters by squeezing a dead bird to make it squeak.
Did I just do that to my son?
He made another sound. “Is he breathing?” Sarah asked.
I told her maybe that’s just air moving around. I’ve never seen a person die, but it seemed like that could be something normal.
Then he took another small breath. I could feel him weakly squirm in my arms.
We held our breath for the next couple of minutes as he fought his way back to life.
I don’t remember as much the rest of the night. We were emotionally spent. After a couple of nights with not much sleep, we had welcomed our son into the world and then watched him die. We had summited Mount Everest, then plunged to the depths of the Mariana Trench in a matter of hours.
We were exhausted.
We went to bed around 10. Sarah laid on her back with Samuel resting on her chest, giving him the skin-to-skin contact that comforted him like nothing else.
I quickly fell into a deep sleep. So deep I was barely coherent when Sarah tried to wake me shortly past midnight.
It was time.
With our emotional reserves still completely gone, we tried our best to say goodbye again. I regretted not having the same fight left in me that Strong Samuel did. But Samuel’s own body couldn’t match his determination either, and it gave out on him a few minutes later.
Samuel, we love you. You’re so strong. You’re the bravest person we’ve ever known. We’re proud of you. We can’t wait to hold you in our arms again someday. We love you so much.
