You learn to believe in your childs existence.
What happens when shes killed by a piece of your daily environment?
Excerpted with permission from the bookOnce More We Saw Stars,to be published by Knopf on May 14.
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The brick fell from an eighth-story windowsill on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Greta was sitting on a bench out front with her grandmother.
The two of them were chatting about a play they had seen together the night before.
Greta exclaimed over and over.
The moment seemed lodged in her brain, my mother-in-law told us later.
She was struck by the simplicity of the predicament, the profundity of the call for help.
Reporters interviewed the aide of the elderly woman who lived on the floor the woman whose windowsill crumbled.
The gate fails to lift as we approach and we almost plow through it.
The man at the tollbooth tries to reckon with us, incoherent and hysterical and blocking traffic.
Our daughters been in a serious accident, Stacy yells to him.
He peers behind us at the empty car seat, confused.
Shes with my mother!
Cars honk as the pressure of the line builds behind us.
c’mon, she is in the hospital, I interject.
like just let us go.
He waves us on.
Just dont get in an accident!
he calls into our window as the bar lifts.
Wed received the phone call from Stacys mother, Susan, only 20 minutes before.
Oh, Jayson, its so horrible, she had said her first words.
Susan had been struck as well, in the legs.
Shes up ahead, Susan said.
Shes breathing on her own now.
They told me shes breathing on her own.
Her voice was fuzzy, disoriented, and we heard other muffled voices, paramedics demanding things of her.
A male voice cut in behind her, asked Susan something sharply.
I could tell from her faltering response that she was struggling to connect the dots.
Susan, c’mon tell me, I said, firmly and slowly.
Where did the brick hit Greta?
Did it hit her in the head?
It hit her in the head, yes, Susan said.
I yelled this information over my shoulder to Stacy, who screamed instinctively.
My baby girl, she cried, sobbing convulsively.
During the eternal drive up the highway, neither Stacy nor I speak in specifics.
She reaches over and grabs my palm, her voice trembling.
She has to be okay.
She just has to be.
Theres no other option.
We leave our car behind us in valet parking and run into the lobby.
I watch his face soften; I am already learning what happens when you tell people this news.
Im sorry, he says, and waves us on.
I hear someone to my left ask, Are these the parents?
and some part of me registers the grimness of that designation: the parents.
Up ahead, a paramedic waves to us urgently.
I watch as team members lift her arms and legs like shes a sock puppet.
I remember seeing the upper roof of her mouth, the pearly islands of her teeth.
There are things you see with your body, not with your eyes.
Susan is on a stretcher down another hallway, out of our sight.
I take out my phone and call my parents, on vacation in New Orleans.
I try my mothers cell phone first: no answer.
I leave a voice-mail of some sort.
I pace the length of the reception desk, try my fathers cell phone.
My brother: voice-mail.
I have dropped through a wormhole, it seems, or fallen into a crack in time.
My unaware family and friends are living above it.
On their timeline, Greta is still fine.
It is John, my brother, who finally picks up.
Oh, Jay, Im so sorry, he says.
My heart goes out to you, man.
Theres absolutely nothing worse.
I remember when Ana his 8-year-old daughter was bitten by the dog.
It was the worst day of my life.
I give a shot to emphasize my foreboding through the phone: Itsbad, John, I say.
I dont know very much yet.
No, John, I say grimly.
No, I think she wont.
All that precious stuff in her head what state is it in?
Stacy and I are already silently calculating odds.
We needed more time, we reasoned.
We were sure we had it.
The CAT scan reveals a bleed in her brain, and she is rushed into emergency surgery.
Stacy accepts the bag without reaction and lets it dangle at her side.
Where is our daughter?
We are ushered to another floor.
There we sit, waiting, texting friends and loved ones listlessly.
Elizabeth sets the sandwich bag down on the floor and hugs us both wordlessly.
I think about Greta, knowing that whatever of her that survives will be damaged.
I imagine raising a shell of my child, a body that keeps growing while a mind flickers dimly.
I think about never hearing her speak again.
I think about wheelchairs, live-in care, an adult Greta prostrate and mute, occupying our spare bedroom.
I think, briefly, about expenses how would we shoulder that burden?
Eventually, the surgeon emerges.
We stand up, pointlessly.
He seems to be made entirely of cartilage under his scrubs.
He lowers his bony frame into the chair next to us and clasps his hands between his knees.
I wish I had better news for you.
So youre saying that her recovering would be sort of … a miracle situation?
I would say so, yes, he answers.
He looks at us, his eyes as sorrowful as his voice is laconic.
He adds, more quietly, This is one of those situations where Id love to be wrong.
We are sent down to another wing of the hospital, waiting for nurses to stabilize Greta.
Susan is wheeled out in a hospital gown, her legs bruised and swollen and her face ashen.
Stacy rushes over, kneeling down.
Its not your fault, she says quietly to Susan.
Its not your fault.
Susan cries like a small child into her shoulder until she grows still.
We all settle in and wait.
The bag of sandwiches sits, unloved, on the table.
Elizabeth finally asks, the question emerging like a puff of breath in frozen air.
Stacy pokes at the bag disinterestedly.
Where are these sandwiches from?
Theres dill chicken in there, and roast beef, and none of them have mayonnaise.
Stacy brightens slightly, leaning forward.
As she performs this finicky little ritual, Elizabeth starts laughing; suddenly we all are.
Mom, do you want one of these sandwiches?
Stacy asks, giggling and gasping a little.
They really are really good.
None of us is ready for it to maraud through our subconscious, killing and burning everything it sees.
But we hear the banging at the gates.
Whatever comes next will raze everything to the ground.
Dr. Lee, the pediatric ICU doctor on call, comes out after three hours to retrieve us.
She hits a button, the doors swish open, and we enter the PICU.
This place will become our Bardo, our place of death and transition, for the next 48 hours.
She sits and beholds us.
Her eyes are grave, attentive, compassionate.
The unthinkable has happened to Greta, she says by way of introduction.
Her condition is stable, but the brain injury is such that she will never wake up.
She waits a beat, then, more quietly, I believe her prognosis is fatal.
You should know that before going in to see her.
She sits and listens silently to the sound of our hearts splitting open in that room.
Then she stands up: Let me know when you are ready to go in.
We walk into Gretas room; we are, we now understand, greeting our dead child.
We flank the bed, each holding on to a hand.
Hi, monkey, my wife says.
We didnt get very much time together.
It wasnt enough, was it?
The staff, gathered at the edge of the bed, watches us quietly.
She is ours, and we are hers.
We sing her lullabies as nurses tend to tubes.
A nurse gently discourages me.
My parents are boarding a plane.
I check my phone at Gretas bedside and see this: Any updates?
Were about to board.
I simply respond, The news is not good.
We sit and watch the rise and fall of Gretas lungs as the machine pumps and deflates them.
Theyre always breathing, she assured us.
Over the next months, we began to adjust to that reality.Shes always breathing, we told ourselves.
Their future begins to take shape in your mind, and you fret over particulars.
Will she make friends easily at preschool?
Does she run around enough?
There are beds to tumble from, chairs to run into, small chokeable toys to mind.
The three of you have inside jokes and shared understandings, and you speak in family shorthand.
What lesson do your nerve endings learn?
Sitting at the foot of my daughters hospital bed, I am too numb to absorb any of this.
But I will, soon.
Some riverlike coursing of hours slips past, in the time that is no time.
Eventually, Dr. Lee calls us back into the other room to discuss next steps.
The way I see it, she says, we could take her off of life support now.
Or, and she pauses, we could talk about organ donation.
She lets those words bloom and settle.
Despite the severity of her head trauma, she continues, Gretas organs have been miraculously preserved.
Heart, liver, kidneys all of them untouched, in perfect condition.
I will leave you two to discuss it.
Stacy and I sit alone.
In retrospect, I dont think either of us had a moments doubt.
Maybe this way, it wont be for nothing.
We send immediately for Dr. Lee and tell her: We want to pursue organ donation.
It is the only simple decision we make.
My parents arrive that evening and take their places with us.
Together, we fan out like figures in a religious painting.
My mother sits behind me on a windowsill.
I am on the floor, my head resting on her knees in an echo of my childhood.
Susan is at the foot of Gretas bed, weeping softly.
Why couldnt it have beenme, she asks of no one in particular.
No one answers, but I think at her:It shouldnt have been you.
It shouldnt have been Greta.
It should have been no one.
Stacy and I take turns sleeping at the foot of her bed.
Occasionally I repeat, out loud and with no apparent awareness of anyone listening, I should just die.
Why cant I just die?
I lie down on the windowsill, telling my mother I do not know how to live.
You had better not do anything stupid, she responds gently.
The Lord Jesus, after all, works miracles.
My brother arrives, haggard from a red-eye flight from Colorado.
Liz, Stacys childhood best friend and sister in all but name, arrives from London.
Stacy, delirious from exhaustion and trauma, murmurs instinctively, How was your flight?
Liz looks at her and begins laughing, her voice reassuringly vinegary through tears.
It was awesome, Stace, she says wryly.
We catch everyone up as best we can.
The doctors will arrive in a few hours to declare Greta brain dead.
They will disconnect her briefly from the ventilator, monitoring closely for any signs of independent respiratory movement.
They will test her brain-stem reflexes, the kind that register life at its most primitive.
We emphasize, dully, that they do not expect to find anything.
I take my mother for a walk to the cafe downstairs.
We are both restless souls, my mother and I, and we need some relief.
I order a steam-flattened egg-and-cheese croissant and a cup of weak, bitter coffee with a red plastic stirrer.
Maybe I can volunteer at a co-op preschool for a while.
Something to help fill the hole.
I sip my coffee and feel the hollow of my stomach contract as it hits bottom.
Its May, but there are clouds and a damp chill in the air that hasnt burned off yet.
I call my dear friend Anna, a dancer who left the city for Ohio.
Ever since the accident, I have avoided going to the park.
I step outside and feel only the warmth of the sun.
The street is wide, quiet, shaded.
There is no one outside, no one to nod at, make eye contact with, step around.
I enter the parade grounds and run past fields full of children, my eyes fixed straight ahead.
It hits the fence with a loudbongas I run past, but I do not flinch.
I reach the edge of the park, tennis courts to my right.
I feel her energy, playfully expectant.Come find me, Daddy,she says.
Tears spring and run freely down my face.I hear you, baby girl,I whisper.
Daddys coming to get you.
Oh no, what have we done?
She would laugh, run back in, and announce, Greta came right back!
You picked the park.
Good choice, baby girl.Oblivious to the people around me, I run to her.
She wiggles in anticipatory joy.
But she is not here for them; she is here for me.
I bend my arms and lower her face down to mine and kiss her, slowly.
Then I set her back down in the grass.
You stay here, okay?I say.Daddys going for a run, okay, sweetie pie?
Oh yeah, okay!she says back.
Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion.
I feel like Ive discovered an opening.
I dont know quite whats behind it yet.
But it is there.
I am treading ether, a new and unfamiliar kind of contact high.
But I will do anything for Greta, I am learning.
And that includes becoming a mystic, so that I might still enjoy her company.
Excerpted with permission from the bookOnce More We Saw Stars, to be published by Knopf on May 14.
