ByMelody Beattie

On January 30, 1991, my son Shane’s 12th birthday, I tookmy two children to a restaurant to celebrate. My daughter, Nichole, apologizedto Shane because she didn’t have a gift. “Want to come skiing with Joey and methis Saturday?” she asked.

Shane’s eyes lit up. Offers like that from his 14-year-oldsister didn’t come very often.

At home that evening Shane sidled up to me while I sat atmy dressing table, brushing my hair. He opened my jewelry drawer and took out asmall gold cross, one his father had given me at the time of our divorce. “CanI have this?” he asked.

“Sure, honey,” I said, “You can have that.”

That Friday, before the birthday ski trip, Shane stopped mein the kitchen, pulled down the neck of his sweater and pointed to the crosshanging around his neck. “God is with me now,” he said quietly.

I had a hard time falling asleep that night. It wasn’t, asthe song says, that I thought we’d get to see forever. But I thought we’d havemore time than we did. I didn’t know the end would come so soon — that I wouldface a mother’s worst nightmare, involving not just one but both of mychildren.

One last time. “Be home by six o’clock!” I yelled as thekids left that Saturday morning for Afton Alps, a ski area south of our home inStillwater, Minn. Nichole promised they would be back ontime.

It was a strange day. I left as if I was waiting forsomething, but I didn’t know what. At 8 p.m. I wondered why the childrenweren’t home yet. I was puttering around the house after 9 p.m. when thetelephone rang.

“Mrs. Beattie?” a man asked. “I’m with the Afton Alps SkiPatrol. Your son has been injured. He’s unconscious, but I’m sure he’ll befine. Stay where you are. We’ll call you back.”

The phone rang again in 15 minutes. “Your son’s still notconscious,” the man said. “We’re taking him to the hospital.”

Be calm, I thought. Drive to the hospital and see your son.Be by his side. Everything will be fine.

A nurse met me in the emergency room. She looked at medifferently from anyone who had ever looked at me before. She took my arm andled me to a small room. “Do you have someone you can call?” she said.

Those words broke my heart. I knew what they meant.

Soon I learned what had happened. After skiing the beginnerhills all day, Shane decided to finish up by trying an expert slope calledTrudy’s Schuss. He talked one of Nichole’s friends into going with him.

When the two reached the top, Shane shouted, “Let’s faceit!” He dug his poles into the snow and pushed off. While going over a mogul,he fell, then stood up. Struggling to regain his balance, he was hit frombehind by another skier and fell again. This time he didn’t move.

In minutes the first-aid sled arrived. When artificialrespiration didn’t work, someone called an ambulance.

“Help him! That’s my brother!” Nichole shouted at theparamedics. As one medic hooked up an I.V, another started to cut off the chainwith the cross that hung around Shane’s neck. “Leave that on him,” Nicholesaid. They closed the doors and sped toward the emergency room.

No more options. At the hospital I talked to a doctor. Hesaid something about brain injury. Swelling. More tests. All weekend I pray fora miracle. Sometimes I couldn't bear to be in Shane’s room. I felt as if I weregoing to explode or go insane. The ventilator whooshed as it pushed air intohis lungs. I held his hand, gently squeezing his fingers. He didn’t squeezeback.

I remembered when we were sledding together a few weeksbefore. Shane slammed into a tree and rolled off the sled. He lay there on hisback in the snow. “Shane, are you all right?” I yelled, running to him.

He sat up quickly, smiled and said, “Psych!”

“Don’t tease like that,” I said. “If anything happened toyou, I don’t think I could go on. Do you understand that?”

He looked at me, got serious and said yes, he knew that.

Now I kept wishing he’d sit up, smile and say, “Psych.” Buthe didn’t.

On the third day the doctors told me we should turn off thelife-support equipment. Shane’s kidneys had shut down. His body wasn’t working.He was brain-dead. Medically there were no more options.

I started screaming, “Damn it! This is my baby you’retalking about!” I kicked a door across from me as hard as I could.

 
After Shane’s friends, Nichole’s friends, and family members said theirgood-byes, I entered his room. I cut off a lock of his hair and touched his foot.I always loved his little feet. And I held him while they shut off theventilator.

When they turned off the machine, a whiff of air escapedfrom his lungs, and he didn’t move again. I knew then he hadn’t moved again. Iknew then he hadn’t been breathing, hadn’t been alive for days. The machineshad made it look that way, but it wasn’t so.

Walking out of the room and out of the hospital was thehardest thing I have ever done in my life.

Losing Nichole. We had balloons at Shane’s funeral. Whenthe children were little, they loved balloons. If they lost one into the air, Iwould comfort them by saying, “That’s okay. God catches all your balloons, andwhen you get to heaven, you get a big bouquet of every balloon you’ve everlost. So don’t cry. They’ll all be there waiting for you.”

The sky was clear that February day as hundreds of balloonssailed up and up until eventually they passed beyond where we could see.

In the months that followed, I missed Shane terribly.Missed his presence, his voice, the touch of him. Some nights I lay awake untilthe morning, trying to penetrate the veil that divides this world from thenext. But Shane felt far away. Gone forever. All meaning had been drained frommy life.

Nichole was also having a bad time. Occasionally we’d crytogether, but as time wore on, I realized I was losing Nichole too. We beganarguing. She refused to do homework and skipped school. I didn’t like the newcrowd of friends she started running with. They were surly, sometimes downrightrude. I tried forbidding her to see them anymore, but it didn’t work.

We were each adrift in our own cold, dark sea, unable tohelp each other, unable to do much but swim for our lives. Sometimes we’d bobto the surface, reach out, touch each other’s hands and say, “I love you.”

On one such occasion, six months after Shane’s death,Nichole said to me, “Mom, some people think things like this get better withtime. But in some ways it gets worse. I miss Shane more every day he’s gone.”

Most of the time, however, we each struggled alone.

“I need help.” One night Nichole came home late. When Itried talking to her, she started giggling, then blew me a kiss. She reeked ofalcohol.

The next day we had a talk. I set some ground rules, tryingto be clear and reasonable. I insisted she see a counselor, but she didn’t wantto go.

I asked her how much she’d been drinking. She named onlytwo other occasions in the past year: the day after the funeral and once lastsummer. She assured me she was doing all right.

Then one afternoon the following winter, I was in thekitchen when the door flew open. “I need to talk to you,” Nichole said. “Idon’t know how to say this, but I can’t control myself when I drink. SometimesI go blank, and the next day I can’t remember anything. I’m scared. I needhelp.”

“Okay,” I said, not knowing what else to offer.

“I’m starting to hate myself,” she went on. “I’ve beenlooking you right in the face and lying to you about where I’m going and whatI’m doing, I’ve also used cocaine and marijuana.”

The next day I admitted her to an inpatient chemicaldependency treatment center for young people. Hugging her goodbye, I held herclose. “It’ll be all right, baby,” I said. “It’s a new beginning, the start ofthe rest of your life.”

“I’ve hurt you,” she said. “I feel so bad, I want you to beproud of me someday, Mom.”

“I’m proud of you now, honey,” I whispered.

It was a strange time when Nichole was in treatment. Iwandered around our house all alone but didn’t feel lost as I had before. Ifound something I thought I’d never find again — calmness, a sense of peace.

The last balloon. Christmas, the second since Shane’sdeath, was a quiet day. I brought Nichole’s presents to her at the treatmentcenter. “Mom, I’m happy I’m here”, she said. “I feel like a new person.”

The following week was family conference, something Idreaded. This was the day the dirty laundry got hung out to air in a privatesession between parent, child and counselor.

I walked into the small office and sat across from Nichole.The counselor, a woman with short hair, sat to the side. “Tell her,” she saidto Nichole.

Nichole’s chin started trembling, and her hands shook. Hervoice was soft in the beginning. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said. “I feel so guilty,so bad. I tried to drink it away. I tried to drug it away.”

Then she stood up and was yelling. “This whole nightmare isall my fault! You told me to be home by six that night. That’s the last thingyou said before we walked out that door. And if I had listened, if I had comehome when you said, Shane wouldn’t be dead now. I’m so, so sorry, Mom.”

The next thing I knew, I was holding her. Her body shook sohard I could barely keep my arms around her.

I told her it was an accident; it was nobody’s fault. Thenbefore I left, I wrote her a note:

“Dear Nichole, I love you very much. I always have. Ialways will. And if you had called me that night to ask if you could ski laterthan 6 p.m., I would have said yes. You didn’t cause this, baby. And don’t everagain think you did. Love, Mom.”

When I got home, the telephone rang. “Thank you, Mom,”Nichole said. “Thank you so much. That note means a lot, more than anything.”

Right then and there I learned how important it is to getrid of useless guilt. Hers and mine.

There are seasons of the heart. There are seasons in ourlives, just as there are seasons to all of nature. These seasons cannot beforced any more than one can force the coming of spring by pulling at tenderblades of grass to make them grow. It took me awhile to understand.

I felt a lightness that I hadn’t felt in years. Maybe ever.I wondered how long, how long really, I had struggled to get this lesson right.

I didn’t have to scramble up and down the mountain fromdespair to euphoria anymore, trying to convince myself that life was eitherpainful and terrible or joyous and wonderful. The simple truth was that lifewas both, I hadn’t come here to live happily ever after, although I now sensedI could.

Nichole came home in January. We vowed to have the bestyear a mother and daughter ever had. To celebrate her homecoming, we had aparty with her friends. It was a grand day.

The time had come, I realized, to release my balloon, theone I had been carrying since the day of Shane’s funeral. To let my heart riseup in joy and hope, the way I thought it never would again.

So I let it go. “Thank you for my life,” I whispered intothe air.