This might be one of the hardest posts I will ever write. It is my deepest hope that I can write in a way that will be helpful to myself, my family, and perhaps even future generations. I hope I can recount the good and the bad of those days- and even weeks, in a way that does justice to my sweet boy, my friends and family, my dear husband, and to my Heavenly Father. I've started to write this post a million times, but have never had the courage to finish. This whole experience has been so surreal. It's been the hardest thing I've ever had to endure.
My best friend Jaime turned 30 this year. All year long I've looked forward to doing something BIG for her 30th birthday. I started thinking on it in June and decided we needed to do a big surprise party, invite all her friends and make it super fun. In July Sandy helped me decide on an 80's neon theme. We talked about doing it at bass lake, at a park, and half-halfheartedly decided to do it in Jaime's shop. It was going to take some serious work to get her out of the house long enough for us to clean and decorate, and not be noticed. This summer Addison met a new little friend Mya and she went over to her house to play. I picked her up one day and just gawked at Jenny's back yard. I didn't even really know Jenny that well, but I just blurted out anyway, "Oh my heck! Can we have Jaime's surprise party here?!" (Jenny is one of the sweetest people I know). Even though I'm sure I know what she was thinking, she totally went along with it like it was no big deal. (She's seriously so nice!) A group of us (Rachel, Ali, Jenny, Sandy) started hammering out the details of the party. Food, decorations, cake, music, invitations. It was going to be SO awesome! We told Jaime we were going to dress up and go to skate land (which she totally bought). (BTW-I'm not sure how we all managed to keep that secret for so long, but way to go us. She had no idea!).
So the day of the party arrived, and I recruited Stewart to come help set up and decorate. Rachel and Jenny were there. We set up a shade tent, decorated the porch, talked about the party, all while the kids played in the back yard and in the house. Cash spent most of the day inside with Nora. I remember Jenny went inside and even got him his own sippy cup of milk. After a little while I was doing a normal kid head count and Cash wasn't around. I went in the house to look for him, but he wasn't there. Jenny and the kids started looking for him. A little Panicked at the thought of the irrigation ditch at the far end of the yard I went there first, but there was no sign of him, so I was sure he was in the front of the house, or maybe even in the house. We ran around the yard and in the house yelling, but no Cash. Jenny ran back to the ditch. I could tell she was freaking out. I'm not really a "freak out mom". She took her shoes off and jumped right in. I thought to myself, "there's no way he can be in here, that kind of stuff doesn't happen to us". I scanned up and down the ditch a ways and still didn't see anything to be alarmed about, until Jenny held up Cash's sippy cup. We both went into panic mode. My heart sank into my stomach and I felt so sick. I took off my shoes and jumped in the water. We started scraping around in the water, being sure to comb under the sides of the bank. We were both screaming and panicking when Jenny stopped, "we need to pray". We immediately folded our arms and Jenny said a quick and immediate prayer. We went back to looking through the water. I screamed out Cash's name and begged my Heavenly Father to not let this be happening to me. I hoped so hard that Cash was running around somewhere we hadn't looked, and this all would be over. After going down the ditch too far, I ran into a bridge. I pushed water through it so violently, just in case something was under there. Nothing. At that point I got out and started running down the bank screaming Cash's name. My eyes were so far ahead of my feet when I saw him. I screamed for Jenny to call 911. I will never unsee that. His little orange shirt, and his black shoes. I jumped in, grabbed my baby and got out. He was so blue. His eyes were open. He was so lifeless. I knew. I knew he was gone. I didn't know what to do, but I immediately started doing CPR. I just pushed on his little chest and screamed for Jenny to get the ambulance here and for this not to happen. I started breathing in his mouth and milk started coming out his nose. I gagged at the smell, but didn't stop. We tried to get water out of him, then went back to CPR. The sheriff got there just before the ambulance. It just seemed that when I looked up the ambulance was driving through the neighbor's field. They came right to us. The EMT's took over and I stood there, useless. I was sopping wet, barefooted, and I just remember feeling so helpless. What a terrible feeling. I got in the ambulance and as we were driving it was all I could do to sit there and cry. I prayed and I cried.
When we got to the hospital they took me to a room. I just sat down and cried. My old neighbor (who works at the hospital) came in and was just shocked. I remember she asked me what happened and all I could do was shake my head. She asked who I wanted to call: no one. I didn't want anyone to know, didn't want anyone to see what a terrible mother I was. Stewart got there not long after me. I broke down in his arms just crying and mumbling, "Cash- he's gone- he drowned-I'm so sorry-it's my fault". I will never forget the feeling of having to tell Stewart that I'd let him down. That I'd failed at my job as a mother. I felt so empty. I felt so useless. I just wanted to disappear. Stewart's first thought was that Cash needed a blessing. They told us they would let us as soon as we could. Slowly my Mom came, and my dad, then Stewart's parents. I remember Austin Rassmasen came into our little room. As soon as my eyes saw him I just felt let down again. Not him. I didn't want him to know. He has his own little blond hair blue eyed baby at home, not much younger than Cash. This was going to kill him too. I prepared for the worst. He was very calm as he said that they managed to get his heart started, and a breathing tube placed. He took us to see Cash. He looked ok, but I knew that Cash went a long time without oxygen. Unless we got some kind of a huge miracle, this wasn't going to be good. They were sending Cash to Boise via life-flight. My first thought was that I wanted to go with him. I needed to be with him. The doctors didn't really give us a clear answer of what was going to happen (how could they, they all knew the reality of it). At that point I was hoping, even praying for a miracle. I had the faith. I knew miracles happen all the time. Before the life-flight crew was ready to take Cash I saw Austin very calmly go to Cash and check his pupils. There was no response, and as I saw Austin's shoulder's sink just the slightest bit, I knew. Again. I knew. He was gone. At that moment I no longer wanted to go on the helicopter with Cash. I knew that I needed to be with Stewart. I asked my mom to go be with Cash and she did. We left the hospital and there were all kinds of people outside- our bishop, Cody, Rachel, Doug. In a state of shock, we hugged them all and went to the car. We had to get to Boise.
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