“Mr. Burpo, can you come back? Colton’s out of surgery, but we can’t
calm him down. He’s still screaming, and he’s screaming for you.”
When they were wheeling Colton away, I couldn’t bear his screams.
Now, suddenly, I wanted to hear his screams more than I’d ever wanted to
hear anything in my life. To me, they would be a beautiful sound.
Sonja and I gathered up our things and followed the nurse back through
the wide double doors that led to the surgical ward. We didn’t make it to
the recovery room but met a pair of nurses wheeling Colton through the
hallway on a gurney. He was alert, and I could tell he’d been looking for me.
My first reaction was to try to get as close as I could to him; I think I
would’ve climbed on the gurney with him if I hadn’t thought the nurses might
feel a little put out.
The nurses stopped long enough for Sonja and I each to plant a kiss on
Colton’s little face, which still looked pale and drawn. “Hey, buddy, how you
doin’?” I said.
“Hi, Mommy. Hi, Daddy.” The ghost of a smile warmed his face.
The nurses got the gurney under way again, and a few minutes and an
elevator ride later, Colton was settled into a narrow hospital room at the
end of a long corridor. Sonja stepped out of the room for a moment to take
care of some paperwork at the nurse’s station, and I stayed behind, sitting
next to Colton’s bed in one of those mesh-covered rockers, drinking in my
son’s aliveness.
A small child looks even smaller in a hospital bed built for grown-ups. At
under forty pounds, Colton’s body barely raised the sheet. His feet reached
no more than a third of the way down the bed. Dark rings still circled his
eyes, but it seemed to me that the blue of his eyes shone brighter than two
hours before.
“Daddy?” Colton looked at me earnestly.
“What?”
He gazed at me and didn’t move his eyes from mine.
“Daddy, you know I almost died.”
Fear gripped me. Where did he hear that?
Had he overheard the medical staff talking? Had he heard something
the surgical team said, despite the anesthesia? Because we certainly