Not By Chance

Chance is still here this morning. Yesterday was the most gut wrenching, longest day of my life. I want to tell you about our day; not for sympathy or anything else but because I have found there to be a lack of information out there to tell you what this will be like and how to do it.
When I went to bed on the night of the 20th I knew that Chance would be spending his last night on this earth. I spent the entire night trying to work up the courage to tell him he could go. I found it at 7:42 am and so our day began...yesterday morning. It was such a wonderful day I wanted to take him outside and get some air. I was sitting in the rocking chair on the porch with him on my shoulder when I noticed for the first time that the crackling sound his breathing now makes had stopped. I leaned him down so that I could see his face and there was mucus coming from every orifice. He wasn't breathing. I ran inside, told Shane to get a wash rag, and began to wipe his face. Chase came in at that moment and was holding the little duck that reads Chance that hangs on a sign outside. His name had fallen off. We freaked out, Shane told Tom to get it back on there now. At first Chance was unresponsive but then he started this awful jerky gasping. I wailed with each breath. It was the most awful thing I had seen up to that point. Then his breathing regulated and he was fine for several hours. We spent most of our day outside just laying in the grass with him. Our neighbors probably think we are crazy. It was really nice though and the kids enjoyed playing, for a moment you could almost forget that everyone was assembled to watch for Chance's next breath. At about 4 p.m. we told everyone to tell him bye. We wanted to take him into our room to hold him as he left us. He never went. I decided to take him back outside. I didn't have my watch on but it must had been around 5:30 or 6 because it was starting to get dark. His hospice nurse showed up. I told her I didn't understand why his body was still here. She told me we should say a prayer. I rocked him against my chest and told him to fly. When I leaned him down to look at him he was gone. His eyes were open, he was not breathing. I cried out. Everyone came outside and my dad said a prayer of comfort for the family. Several minutes had past and the nurse went to get her stuff from her car to check him. It was then he gasped. I cried out that he was breathing. I was in horror. They told me it was the body and it would stop soon. He kept on gasping every time I thought he was gone. I cried out "it was supposed to be peaceful, this is not peaceful". For reasons I haven't yet figured out he regulated his breathing and is still here. I did breakdown last night and took him to the ER. I felt that his body was fighting so hard I owed it to him to fight also. Shane rushed us there and the whole trip I did what I promised I wouldn't do; I begged for a miracle. I tried to convince God a miracle would have so much more impact than death. I was scared and desperate...