❛ The anniversary of his death comes every year,
&& every year, I can’t breathe . . . ❜
He was her second baby. When Violet was 18 months old, before Dash came along, Helen and Bob were blessed with the arrival of a second child- a son they named after Helen’s father. They were in their first house and there was a second floor to it, usually quartered off by a baby-gate so that if Helen was upstairs or down, the children couldn’t access the stairs.
When her first son was learning to walk, however, he took to using the stair banister to stand himself up. One afternoon, when Helen was upstairs putting laundry away and Violet was scooting a toy scooter around the landing, her son stood himself up using the baby gate as an anchor. The gate gave way && the boy fell down the stairs. Violet was screaming.
The ambulance was called, but the toddler’s condition was critical. By the time Bob arrived at the hospital, Helen was holding Violet and unresponsive. Their son had passed away.
Time went on. Dash was born && eventually Jack-Jack too. Pictures were removed from walls and toys were first passed down to her other children, then donated to goodwill with a smile. June 14th never leaves, though. Every other reminder to be had of the tragedy can be scrubbed away, but the day of her son’s death is an expected visitor that won’t be turned away or ignored. It demands to be acknowledged and remembered and felt for all it’s worth; a steady constant that blames Helen for the negligence disguised as an accident.