He was due to arrive on July 30th, he waited until August 12th.

He was born busy. Always too busy to take care of the little things, that was him. He was born so full of life that he wouldn’t nurse. Nope, not hungry! I stayed at the hospital for three days, the nurse finally brought him to me and asked that I try to get him to eat but he was quite content to come for a visit and leave it at that. He was born not needing me, born pulling away and getting started.

He was the strangest and most delightful child. I don’t believe I ever heard him say he was bored. He was always playing. Always playing…..

He is a precious soul, always joyful, always laughing, always creating something.

He was good company too.

And best of all, he instinctively knew the magic of laughter. He had impeccable timing and could make a joke out of things that would have better left alone. Make you laugh at something that you’d be ashamed to admit to later. So quick, I never ceased to be amazed at his quickness.

Everything in him was quick…too quick…

Maybe I’ll teach myself to write with my right hand instead of my left.

It’s a crazy notion but why not? My life is forever changed, why shouldn’t there be obvious signs of the change? Why shouldn’t I quit my job and become a full time artist. Why shouldn’t I move across the country, cut my hair, get a tattoo…okay so I did do that…but my life is different now. Totally changed and I didn’t even get a vote. It just happened.

You always live in fear of that phone call. You always wonder what you’d do.

I never allowed myself to dwell on it, always thinking everything was going to work out just fine. He’d learn to handle his health problems. He’s seeing a specialist now, getting regular treatment, on a good regimen with his medicines. After all, it hadn’t been more than a week since he told me over the phone that he had never felt better in his life.

Then the call came. It started out the same way the last two had began. In the last two years his asthma had put him in ICU twice. Both times he was put into a medically induced coma and on a ventilator while they pumped him full of steroids. Both times he woke up and charmed the nurses off their feet.

Jamie began the way she had before. She said he had an attack and was in the hospital but this time she added, “You need to come as soon as you can”. I asked if he was okay and she repeated “you need to get here as soon as you can.” Then I knew. I went ahead and asked if he was dead and she said “I don’t want to tell you that over the phone.”

And with that it was suddenly too late. Too late for all of the things you think you will do one day. Too late for anything you might have been waiting to say. Too late to say I love you one last time.

My heart stopped beating.
My mind raced. When? How?
My mind took inventory. What does his smile look like, the sound of his voice. When was the last time I saw him, when was the last time I spoke with him by phone. What was the last thing we said to each other?
My hands raced. Did I save that last email; is that last message still on my phone?
My heart stopped beating.

Pseudo sensibility kicked in like a macabre form of automatic pilot. I spoke with nurses, and transplant staff and called his father, my sister’s, thought of calling Dana but he was on his way to work and I didn’t want him to worry about me driving back home. I left my office still on the phone notifying people. Stopped at the front desk to sign out when my boss became aware of something amiss and took me to his office. He asked for Dana’s number and placed the call I should have. Then he took me back to my office and took care of me until Dana got there.

He took care of a ghost – my heart had stopped beating.

The last time I saw him was September 27th 2006. Almost two months before he died. He was healthy and happy and doing better than I had ever seen him do before. He had just finished his orientation period at his first great job. He was a dispatcher at Air-Evac. He had talked about how he was ready to get married and start a family. He was looking ahead and making plans.

To say I loved this boy, my child, my only child, does not even begin to tell the whole story. He was so smart, so clever and witty. Sometimes you hear that a person has an old soul, I can’t say this about Andrew, it’s not quite accurate. It was more like he had an immortal soul. A soul that was born out of time, no, that’s not it either. A soul that was born for all times. There, that’s it.

Some stars shine so bright that they can’t shine too long.

And now he is gone. But he is not a ghost, an apparition floating from room to room. No, that’s me. He’s gone on across the river Jordan and through the eastern gate. He will be there waiting when my turn comes to cross but until then…I’m the ghost…

Robert Andrew Romero

"PACO"

August 12, 1980 -
October 23, 2006

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." Oscar Wilde