As I’m laying here on the couch watching The Hallmark Channel, I know it’s all sappy Christmas movies, but there is no real world drama and that is what I need now. What is running through my head is nothing but real world drama. Tomorrow is 11/17/18, the one year anniversary of the day we made the final decision, the day we turned off the machines and disconnected all the tubes that where keeping Connor alive.

I wish I could say that it was an easy decision but it wasn’t. It was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life. One of my biggest worries was how was I going to tell Jordan, the love of his life and her his, that he was never coming back. She had spent 11 days in the PICU with us, she wasn’t ready to lose him and everything they had planned. I chickened out, I let her parents tell her, I wasn’t strong enough to tell her that he was never coming back.

I second guessed it over and over in the hospital, looking for second, third and even fourth opinions. All of those opinions came back the same, that he would never be the same young man as before the accident. He was gone and now I needed to remove the medical intervention that was keeping him here.

For hours before we removed the machines I sat next to him, holding his hand and crying, crying just like I am now. I kept asking him to open his beautiful blue eyes so I could say good bye and tell him I love him. I told him all those things even when he couldn’t open his eyes for me.

I have pictures that I took of him hooked up to all those tubes, but they are for my eyes and memories only. The memories shared here will be of Connor being him, loving Jordan, playing baseball, doing all the things as a smaller child that made me both love him and want to strangle him simultaneously.

There will never be a day that I don’t miss him, at this point in time all I can hope is that I can make it through the holidays without turning into a puddle of mush, but I am not optimistic.