Stories of Lost Children
The Lowest of Lows
by Kathleen Calabria, Yenda, New South Wales, Australia
The birth of our son Joshua was the most exciting and nervous times in my husband and my life. being 18 and 19 respectively at the time we knew that we had a long lifetime of happiness and love ahead of us. On April 16th, 2005, at 9 and 1 week pregnant, Eli (my husband) recieved a phone call from one of his old school friends that his best mate was on life support in a Sydney hospital. He had been in a car crash. Not wanting to see the devestation that the crash had done to Leggy and my being so close to giving birth we didn't visit him. Saturday 30th April dawned on us knowing that now that his life support had been turned off and he could go at any moment, so we went out for a drink to remember him. It was also the day that I woke up in labour. Fast forward to 6.30 p.m. on Sunday 1st May 2005, I had given birth to a healthy 7 pound 0 ouce baby boy that we had named Joshua Ryan Calabria. 9 a.m. the next morning we received that phone call that Leggy had died. He held on just long enough to know his god-son was alive and healthy in this cruel world. He was 20 years old. Fast forward 2 weeks and Eli and I are in Griffith staying with Eli's mother for Leggy's funeral. we stayed in Griffith for a week before returning to Orange (where I grew up and most of my family and friends still lived) to show them our precious angel. 1 week later we were in Whingham seeing the last of the family (my sister) and we recieved a phone call from Eli's younger sister saying that his mother Carolyn had died suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 44. Racing back to Griffith, we decided to stay here as we had no jobs on the south coast but could get work out here. My parents (who we had been living with on the coast) came for Carolyn's funeral then went back home a couple of days later. One week on (June 12th) I took Joshua to our family doctor due to the stress in the past 5 weeks, we both had contracted colds and he was very restless. Our doctor put me on antibiotics knowing that with me breast feeding some would pass to Joshua and we would both get better. June the 15th, my brother Ken came out to Griffith to bring us and Joshua some clothes as we had been living out of a suitcase for over a month and Joshua was growing rapidly. I fed Joshie at 2 a.m., like I always did, and he fell off my breast at 2:30 a.m. so I layed him down in between us (as we had no other place to put him) and we went to sleep. At 7:01 a.m. I woke up because Joshua was due for his feed. I looked over and he looked so peacefull, like he was still asleep. I don't know what it was but for some reason i placed my hand on his chest. As I did that my hand brushed ever so slightly against his and he was stone cold. As a trained first aid officer with 6 years experince and counting with St. John Ambulance Australia, my first aid instincts took over. I immediately noticed that he was white, with a bluish tinge around his lips. There was also blood on the bed which was dry. It looked like it had come from his nose. At this point, in a frantic panic I awoke Eli with 3 words 'Eli, It's Joshie". He sat up am somehow he just knew straight away what had happened. He grabbed Josh and started to cradle him as he cried. I ran to the phone to call the ambulance at this point I knew as Eli did there was no one who could help him but we had to do things the right way round. After being connected to the ambulance and telling them the details they asked if I wanted to try CPR but I told them I knew it was no use. I managed to accept it a lot better then than shortly after. The ambulance arrived by about 7:15 and we got dressed and went out to meet them. Eli already knew who was coming because one of his school friends fathers was an ambulance officer they went into our room and came out shortly after to tell us that they had to make some calls. The police arrived and also a detective to take our initial statements while we waited for forensics to arrive from Wagga 2 hours away. After foresics had processed our room we were given the chance to say our goodbyes which were too short and much too soon. Three weeks later and many infuriating calls later we were told that we could have our son back to lay him to rest. We had the funeral and laid our boy to rest. The worst thing about the whole thing wasn't losing a mate, mother-in-law, and son within 6 weeks; it was the narrow-mindedness of people we had known for years. Eli's own brother even blamed me for our son's death saying that I was an unfit mother. Teachers from Eli's old high school were stopping us in the street saying that there were rumours at the school saying that Eli had slit his throat while Joshie and I slept. To us that was the lowest of lows and Joshie's death marked the lowest of lows within our 20 years of life.
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