Last night, my fiance and I burned a candle for the anniversary of the last time we all had dinner together, here on earth.

Our nephew was 12 years old last year, he came to live with us for his 9th birthday. He previously lived in New York with his paternal grandmother, and came to live here after his mother had finally gotten back custody of him. She had him back for 4 short months before she dropped him off here and moved to Florida with her 2 daughters and their father. My fiance and I were 21 and 19 when he was left here with us and his maternal grandmother. We loved and cared for him as if he were our own. There was always love here, but he made our house a home. He played a sport every season, got lectures from me about slacking in school like little boys do, and finally had some stability in his life.

My fiance and I worked food service and had to reschedule most holidays around our schedules. For some reason, last Easter we had enough and quit our jobs to have a real family dinner on the day it was meant to be had. Little did we know it would be our last holiday dinner together.

On April 2nd last year, our nephew said "Love you, goodnight!" around 11 and we thought he had a double ear infection that he had been to the hospital for earlier that morning. But 15 minutes later, we swore we could hear him crying in his room. So I say down next to him, he was face down on the bed, and rubbed his back and shooshed him, asking what was wrong and if there was anything I could do. When I touched him, he was on fire and not responding to my words. We flipped the lights on and realized he was covered in hives and swollen more than I'd ever seen someone swell in my life. This little boy was 165 pounds to my 120 and I scooped him into my arms and yelled for someone to call 911. I tried to shock him with frozen peas, begging him to speak to me. His breath was raspy and it seemed as if it was an eternity between ragged breaths. His entire body was shaking and I could feel his heart racing. If I held him up right, it seemed as if he could breathe more and he was trying to utter words to me. The 911 dispatcher told me to throw him down and start CPR, I kept telling her he couldn't breathe laying down but I did as was instructed. I did chest compressions through tears, my fiance was holding the phone next to me on speaker and his aunt and grandmother were outside trying to flag down the ambulance. The biggest police officer I'd ever seen walked in and all I could get out was "Help me." He took over chest compressions and told us to call his name out to him. The ambulance finally came, they intubated him and took him away to the local hospital. Our nephew never regained consciousness. He was transferred to a PICU 2 hours away, we drove there as fast as we could and arrived just in time to get the results from his cat scan. He had suffered a massive aneurysm on his brain stem and was being prepped for surgery to release pressure. The odds were not in our favor, if he survived there was already severe and irreversible brain damage. But we would gladly have fed him, bathed him, taught him to walk and talk again. Whatever had to be done, we just wanted him to come home.

In the following 24 hours, he had 3 catscans, 8 hours apart, to check for any brain activity before he was given one last test. We called family from all over the east coast and we stood over his bed at 11pm on April 4th as they conducted his final test. He was unhooked from all his monitors and we waited and prayed over him, begging for even a flinch, a breath, a hiccup. I held his mother down while she screamed for him to please wake up. If the test wasn't silent, we'd have to start the 24 hours over again. At 11:35pm on April 4, 2018, Gavin was pronounced dead. Although doctors say he truly died here at home, in my arms. I still have nightmares. I still want his mother to know I tried to save him, I'd have given him my very life if God would let him have it. They say CPR kept his heart beating long enough for the family to say goodbye and his parents to donate his organs. I was contacted by the mother of a young man who received a kidney from Gavin yesterday. It was very bitter sweet. A month after Gavin passed, I found out on Mothers day that I was pregnant. We had already had 2 miscarriages and we believe that's so Gavin could have 2 siblings in Heaven like he did here on earth. Before his passing, he was baptized on his deathbed, my fiance and I are his God parents.

I'm sorry this is so long, if anyone made it this far- thank you for hearing my story. I figured it would help to write down, I relive it everyday. My son is 11 weeks old today and I wish I could have just one picture of the two of them together. Anyways, hold the ones you love tight and ALWAYS say "I love you, goodnight." You really don't know how important it is until it's too late.