I had my daughter Hayley when I was 19. Too young to truly give her the childhood I never had, but damn did I try! Her father walked out on us both when she was just 3, and I always worried that she would end up with a deadbeat like him. I know the impact daddy issues can have on a young girl- I spend much of my young adulthood worrying that she would turn out just like me- eternal fast food employee, no potential beyond flipping burgers at $13.50 an hour for the rest of my meager existence.
We made it all the way to high school without much drama or dating. She was always a mommy’s girl, through and through, and she told me everything. She told me when she met David in her math class, when she kissed him under the bleachers at the Homecoming game, and when she was invited to his 17th birthday party, I was the first one she told. She was only 14 at the time, a new high school freshman, and of course I had my anxieties about this party, the age difference, everything. But I trusted her. My daughter never lied to me. She was responsible in a way that shocked me sometimes, and I thought she would be okay at a party, for a little while. She knew to text me our code if she needed to be picked up for any reason. She knew I wouldn’t be angry, even if she had a little bit to drink, and that my number one priority was a safe, happy daughter.
When I got the call at 1am that night, I was expecting anything other than what I heard. Brief moments of that call still flash through my mind, in fleeting, vulnerable moments. “Car accident,” “He was under the influence,” “She’s being rushed to the hospital.” I must’ve broken my car’s speedometer on that drive to the hospital, navigating the dark, empty streets as if my life depended on it. And, in one respect, it did- my daughter was all I had going for me, she was the best thing that ever happened to me, and if I lost her? I didn’t know what I would do.
I was initially rushed into a small room in our local hospital’s ICU, where I was told she had blunt force trauma to the head and likely wouldn’t even make it through the night. When she did, I believed it to be a miracle, God showing me that it wasn’t her time yet. The doctors and nurses ran test after test. She was in a coma for months before they finally began insisting, rather than suggesting, that she be taken off of life support. I knew I couldn’t allow this to happen- my baby, my Hayley was still in there, and I knew it.
They insisted she was brain dead, that she couldn’t hear our voices, couldn’t hear them insisting she was gone already and I’d be better off spending time in grief counseling than by her bedside. Shortly after the staff began putting the pressure on me to let my daughter go, it happened for the first time. Movement. It started with her grabbing my hand back. The nurses insisted it was a leftover reflex, and that she had no idea I was even there.
But I knew better than that.
Then, the handshapes. The staff insisted that the patterned shapes she formed with her fingers- over and over again- meant absolutely nothing. “Just a twitch.” They stated matter-of-factly. “Just her muscles clenching up.” I saw a clear pattern, and I etched it into my brain.
A fist, with her middle and pointer finger sticking up.
Fingers held back from her palm, like a bear claw.
Another fist, this time displaying her pointer finger and thumb in an L shape.
And the most confusing of all, her middle and forefinger splayed out, with her thumb hanging between the two.
I memorized this pattern, simply looking for meaning in sitting by her bedside day after day. Finally, a few days shy of her 15th birthday, I allowed them to pull the plug on my daughter. I made them assure me over and over again that she was brain dead, that my daughter wasn’t there anymore, despite the twitches and reflexive patterns I saw displayed by her hands day after day.
She died September 16th, at 4:32pm.
I tried the best I could to get my life back on track after Hayley’s death. I went to counseling, put in extra time at work, and even began volunteering at a shelter for homeless teen girls. I knew it was the sort of thing my daughter would’ve been proud of me for doing. After a few months volunteering at the shelter, I had to opportunity to help out an old friend of my daughter’s. I remembered this particular friend because she was Deaf, and taught Hayley a little bit of sign language when they sparked up a friendship. That was one of the things I loved about Hayley. She was able to be friends with anyone, communication barriers be damned.
I ended up spending a few weeks with this girl, and began learning some sign language as a result, too. I felt very connected with Hayley during this time. One evening, we went over the alphabet over and over, so that I could fingerspell words that I didn’t know to her. As I was practicing at home that evening, my blood ran cold. The “spasms” my daughter experienced in her last week of life?
Those were no spasms. They were signs.
H - E - L - P.