Years ago I heard an episode of the Radio drama Adventures In Odyssey. I don’t really remember that episode but I do remember the young girl character was told, \u00a0\u00a0‘Whenever you’re in the middle of a dream, and you think it’s going to be bad, you say real loud, “Go away bad dream, BOO!” and the bad dream will go away and you’ll wake up.’\u00a0 Tonight I want to shout it from the mountain tops. Go away bad dream, BOO!\u00a0 This bad dream is not going to go away.\u00a0 I lost my 29 year old son tonight.\u00a0 That is wrong, I did not lose him, he died.\u00a0 It is not right for parents to outlive their children.\u00a0 He was too young.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0His name was Dale.\u00a0 I loved him more than words can tell.<\/p>\n
This evening we got a call from \u00a0the hospital telling us Dale was in cardiac arrest and to come quickly. We raced to the hospital.\u00a0 I won’t tell you how fast we drove to get there. The first time we ever drove that fast was the day I was in labor with Dale.\u00a0 Dale was my third child.\u00a0 I had been through two labors and two deliveries before his birth and I knew that he was coming quickly.\u00a0 He would not wait, so we drove fast.\u00a0\u00a0 The second time we ever drove that fast was when Dale was 11 years old and we took him to Europe on a vacation.\u00a0 Just Dale, my husband and me, \u00a0and Dale’s baby sister.\u00a0 We had a fast rental car and while I was sleeping in the back seat of the car, my husband decided to see just how fast the car would go.\u00a0 I woke up during this test for speed.\u00a0 Let me say, I was not amused, but Dale LOVED it. We drove fast.\u00a0 This night was the third time we drove fast, yet it was not fast enough.\u00a0 It was not fast enough to keep Dale from dying.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0They performed CPR until we got there…but he didn’t make it. \u00a0My husband, Dale’s sister and I were with him when he passed. Dale was just 29 years old. He did not take his own life. \u00a0It was not an accident.\u00a0 We were there when he passed away.<\/p>\n
Dale checked himself into the hospital earlier in the day.\u00a0 They said he was okay, or maybe they didn’t say he was okay, \u00a0I can’t remember, but the doctor told us, “…then things went bad.”\u00a0 Dale was dehydrated and his electrolytes were way off.\u00a0 His heart could not take the strain, he went into cardiac arrest and he died.\u00a0 They had performed CPR for a long time.\u00a0 Long enough for us to get to the hospital to say goodbye.\u00a0 How do you say goodbye to your 29 year old son?\u00a0 They asked if I wanted to be there when they stopped working on him.\u00a0 I said no, yet the bad dream did not go away.\u00a0 I knew Dale could not be alone and got up and went to be with him.\u00a0 I held his hand I told him I loved him, and yet that was not enough.\u00a0 He died.\u00a0 My son is dead.\u00a0 Go away bad dream, BOO!<\/p>\n