When Aidan was born, I had the usual fatherly worries -- here was a whole new world of responsibility -- but I was confident that I would learn quickly and respond well to the new role. I was not afraid. Neither was I giddy. I simply did what had to be done to make Aidan and Maureen comfortable. She was on maternity leave and was breast-feeding, so most of my duties were secondary to her maternal preeminence: I ran off to the store, made sure we ate and tried not to grumble too much about the interruptions of our sleep. Work took me out of the house for large portions of the day, but in the late afternoon and evening I learned how to change diapers and clothe and bathe a tiny body. It all seemed quite manageable and straightforward.

And then Aidan stopped breathing.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

After several hours in the PICU, shifting our eyes from Aidan's fragile body to numbers flashing on the various monitors (his pulse seemed regular and strong) and back again to his small round head and wisps of golden brown hair, we decided that we should try to sleep somehow. Maureen slipped off to find a room at the Ronald McDonald House just outside the gate of the medical center.

The waiting area where I found myself was the usual institutional setting: boxy chairs and sofas, a dilapidated television, half-filled vending machines. White-blue light bathed every corner, leaving no bit of darkness to ease the eyes. I had slept in worse places, so I stretched out on one of the longer couches, my fatigue by this time deep enough that worried thoughts gradually gave way to a quiet emptiness, an undreaming unconsciousness.

What marked this night for me was its end. In waking, I sensed others in the room with me but I did not move, did not let on that I could hear the hushed conversation. It was a young couple, in their 20s, hovering about the pay phone. Coins clinked through the slot and buttons clicked as the woman dialed.

"Mom," I heard her gasp, "Jimmy's ... dead."

Her voice trailed up into a squeaky, muffled cry as the final consonant passed her lips. The youthful father tried to find some comforting words while she continued in halting phrases. Riveted by that single statement, I didn't try to make out the rest of what was said; it rang in my ears, stirring my senses like a sudden shocking alarm. I lay motionless until they hung up and moved on, out of the lounge and toward the PICU. Rolling on my back I let my eyes open and stared at the ceiling. "Jimmy's dead." That's what happens here, or what could happen. How old was he? Two years? Six months? Why did he die? And what would become of Aidan?

I rose and went back to his bed.

Part 2: Our lives are transformed.

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