Without a Word_ How a Boy's Unspoken Love Changed Everything - Jill Kelly [64]
“Hunter won’t need oxygen in heaven. The only reason—”
Camryn anxiously interrupted, with attitude. “But if he doesn’t have oxygen, he won’t be Hunter. I won’t recognize him.”
I could tell that no matter what I said, it probably wouldn’t make a difference to Cam, but I continued anyway. “In heaven, Hunter doesn’t need oxygen. There’s no disease or sickness there. He’s finally free, Cam. Free to do all the things he never could here. Isn’t that so cool? I wonder what Hunter’s voice sounds like. And what—”
“How did Hunter get sick, Mama?” she interrupted again.
Oh boy, I thought to myself—here we go. I took a deep breath and tried to explain what I didn’t fully understand myself. “Well, honey, Hunter was born without a special enzyme that we all need in our brain. Because he didn’t have that enzyme, his brain didn’t work the way it’s supposed to. We need our brain to work so that we can run and talk and eat and laugh and do all of the things we do every day.”
I paused for a moment as she pondered.
“Why didn’t we just give Hunter what he needed?” she asked.
How I wished it had been that easy.
“Camryn, we did everything we possibly could for your brother.”
I then tried my best to satisfy Cam’s childlike desire to make sense of her brother’s life and death.
Finally she said, “I miss Hunter. And I’m tired. Can we pray and go to bed now?”
I pulled the covers up close to her little face and kissed her forehead. After both girls were snuggled in, I knelt beside their bed and prayed.
While I had been talking with Camryn, I wondered what Erin was thinking. She spoke up a few times during our conversation, but for the most part she just listened. I would discover a couple of weeks later how her young mind was processing everything, when we agreed to share our story with People magazine. If I had known the outcome of the article before the interview, I would’ve never agreed to do it.
In the past, whenever Jim and I shared our personal family struggles with the media, we always had one goal in mind—to encourage families and draw awareness to Hunter’s Hope. In this interview, I didn’t want to talk about losing Hunter because I hadn’t even processed it all yet. Instead, I wanted to talk about his life and the undeniable, indescribable joy our family experienced as a result of it. Yet as much as we tried to accentuate the incredible impact of Hunter’s life, unfortunately the writer focused on the details of his death.
All three of our children had participated in and listened to numerous interviews we’d done throughout the years, but Erin was unusually upset after our People interview. As I hugged her tightly and tried to console her, I thought about what we might have said that would’ve caused her to cry. As much as I could recall, I was fairly confident that Jim and I hadn’t said anything she didn’t already know.
We’d always been very careful about what we said in front of the kids. Although maybe a tad extreme, we made every effort to keep negative talk far from their innocent, impressionable ears. Life was hard enough, so we tried to protect them as much as possible.
While Jim and I said good-bye to the magazine crew, my mother comforted Erin. As soon as they were gone, I motioned for Erin to come and sit next to me on the couch. Her face was blotchy from crying, and she appeared exhausted. “Honey, please talk to me,” I urged as I brushed her bangs away from her face so I could see her blue eyes.
“Mommy, how come I’m not a carrier like you and Daddy and Camryn? I want to be a carrier of the gene, too.”
I was stunned and didn’t know what to say. Before I could respond, tears filled my eyes.
Erin continued, “I wanted to have a baby someday just like Hunter. What if I wanted to have a Krabbe baby?”
Her words broke my heart. I knew she loved Hunter, but I had no idea how much she had identified with him and his illness.
During the four years following Hunter