Oliver

I'm not sure how appropriate my sharing this part of my life is. Most of you know that I had a son but really don't know much else. I wanted to write about and remember how proud i was and am of him and also hope it to be somewhat therapeutic as i still sometimes find it hard to accept. Maybe I just need to see it, to think about it and finally kind of just "get over it".


Oliver was born Christmas day, 1972. His full name was Oliver Eugene Williams, my first and only child. I don't remember how large he was at birth but I do remember he was very healthy. I also remember getting thrown up on in the operating room by my wife during the delivery process. His mother and I had attended Natural Child Birth classes and fully intended for him to be born the natural way. Thank goodness for epidurals.


Oliver was an especially sweet boy from the beginning. Never demanding nor was he hard to discipline (which wasn't needed often). One of his favorite things to do was share the hugs which he almost always initiated. He loved his friends, his dog and most of all his mother and father. One evening a couple of weeks before his pals Birthday party, we were laying together watching TV and he asked me out of the blue, what it was like to be dead. I really wasn't shocked ( he was always asking odd questions) and i replied that I thought it was probably like before he was born. He seemed to understand that I didn't know.


He attended the Birthday party and never came home. He was 8 years old.


Oliver and the other boys were playing as boys always seem to be doing. He ran through a plate glass door, impaled himself on the glass and bled to death before he was able to be helped. I am pretty sure immediate help wouldn't of saved his life anyway, I believe he was mortally wounded.


I remember the funeral, the tears, the grief my mother and father suffered through along with my brothers and sisters.. I remember how his mothers parents and siblings grieved for him as well. After he was killed I really don't recall much of my life. Time for me seemed to vanish. The days turned into weeks, then months and then a year came. It is kind of like a dream that you remember bits and pieces of, then my life slowly started happening again.


His death changed me a lot more than i had ever realized. I wasn't aware of it till years later. I became cynical, wallowed in my pain and selfishness and the fact that it wasn't fair and why me.


My son's death was a random accident. Many people say it was gods will to take him, or that god has a plan for me and had a plan for him. Well, I for one am not all that keen on gods plans for me or the plan he had for Oliver. I don't believe that, how could that be? His death is the main reason I have trouble understand and accepting the existence of god. I have read the scriptures pertaining to loss, the justifications why god lets things like this happen. I guess I'm just to hard headed or ignorant to see the light.


I do know this, I still miss the little guy and I am envious (in a good way) of the people I know with children. I hope they cherish every second they have with them. Children truly give people a reason to live.


I am fine, but i will forever wonder how he would of turned out.

This Christmas he would of been 37 years old.