On Thursday,
October 10th, I left the house for work. Before leaving, I stopped by Joshua’s bedside
to give him a kiss. I told him, “Joshua,
daddy has not spent a lot of time with you this week, but I will spend the next
four days with you at Disney World.” I
kissed him, he smiled and I left for work.
I did not know that would be the last time I would see my son alive, the
last time I would speak to him and the last time I would see his smile.
My world changed
while I was at work in a Leadership Strategy session in the Alachua Room at the
Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce. To
be honest with you, I don’t even remember what we were strategizing about, but
I remember the rest of the day like it was yesterday.
My
phone rings. It is Patrice. Normally, I
do not answer the phone in a meeting. I usually
let it go to voicemail then I would text her to ask if everything is ok. This time I look at my phone. I contemplate about answering it. I get up.
I walk out of the room and answer the phone. The siren is loud! Patrice is screaming!
“Patrice, what happened,” I asked.
She replies, “they won’t tell me.
They sent the cops to pick me up.”
My
heart drops, I’m weak.
“Where are they taking you?”
“To Shands,” she replies.
“I’m on my way.”
I
walk into the Alachua room and tell my colleagues that I have to go. They are taking
Joshua to the hospital and the only thing I know is that the cops went to pick
up Patrice.
Karen
Fiore follows me to my desk. I inform
Joe and Shareen that I have to leave.
Karen asks me if I need a ride to the hospital and I say yes. As we are driving, my first instinct is to
call the prayer warriors I know. I call
Anntwanique Edwards. I have no answers for her; all I know is that I need her
to pray. I text District Missionary Oliver and I ask her to pray.
We
pull up to the emergency room. I get out
of the car. The attendant asks me if I was the father. I reply yes. He tells me to press the button
by the door and tell them. The double
doors open, I see a sea of Sheriff Officers everywhere. I pause.
My thoughts are - this is not good.
I hear Patrice crying, I walk to the room. I see Joshua lying lifeless. Blood is all over him. His eyes are fixed, they seem lifeless
Patrice would say. The doctor is
attempting to explain to me what happened.
The emergency room administrator is asking me to sign papers. The
Executive Director of PPEC is trying to explain what happened. The doctor said, his heart was stopped for
24-minutes in the emergency room. We
don’t know how long it stopped before in the ambulance.
They
take us to the tenth floor and we sit in the Ronald McDonald’s Family Room, as
they prepare to bring Joshua up to the PICU ward. As we sit in the room with Karen and the
nurse, I get a visitation from the spirit. “Joshua is gone,” He tells me. I lean back in my chair and I reply, “Lord,
how in heaven’s name am I going to tell this to Patrice?” They inform us that he is in the room, we go
and so many people are working on him to give us an opportunity to say
goodbye. We elect to go back to the
family room. They come to get us
again. I inform the doctor that I need
to talk to him. I ask him what are the
next steps in this process. He responds
zero-percent chance of recovery. I ask
him again, “What are the next steps?” He
responds with a question, “Have you ever experienced this before? You are
asking questions like you have.” To this
day, I regret that I did not inform him that the Lord already told me that my
Joshua was gone. I tell him, “Doctor! I
need you to do everything in your power so that 5 to10 years from now, there
will be no questions. No what if we had tried this or what if we had tried
that. I need Patrice to be certain that
everything that could be done to save her son is done.
My colleagues
visited, so did Nurse Laura and many more. I can’t even begin to remember
everyone who came by the hospital. Later
that evening as I sat in the lobby, I was speaking to Anntwanique and Superintendent
Oliver. We went upstairs and Anntwanique
asked if she could pray, and I told her yes. However, this time she asked
Superintendent Oliver to pray and he did.
After prayer, Anntwanique asked to speak to me. She said that she did not want to pray and
offend me because I spoke with such certainty down stairs that Joshua was
gone. I told her she could have prayed,
I would have never been offended.
Friday morning,
Anntwanique called me and told me that she was at the Gainesville Health and
Fitness Center when the Lord spoke to her and told her that Joshua was
gone. She said she was on the treadmill,
crying. “People probably thought I was crazy”, she said. Friday afternoon, I was relaying the story
from Anntwanique to my mother-in-law when Patrice walked in the room and
overheard it. Patrice said at that
moment she accepted God’s journey for Joshua.
We discussed as a family donating Joshua’s organs. We did, and now he lives on in four different
people.
The hospital ran
two-brain activity examinations by two different doctors. At 12:38 a.m. on October 12th,
Joshua Joel Fletcher was declared Clinically Brain Dead. His death certificate says - he died from
Hypoxia, a lack of oxygen to the brain. So now we are here – one year later…
Joshua baby boy,
I miss you so much; but I hold true to the fact that one day I will see you
again. I close with the way I’ve always kissed you, my son.
<Kiss>
“Mommy Loves you!”
<Kiss>
“Daddy Loves you!”
<Kiss>
“Sister Loves
you!”
<Kiss>
“Grandma Loves
you!”
<Kiss>
“Everybody Loves
you!”
“But most of all…”
<Kiss>
“GOD the father Loves
You!”
<Kiss>
“Jesus Christ of
Nazareth the son Loves You”
<Kiss>
“And the Holy
Spirit Loves You!”
<Kiss>
“Yay, Joshua!”
Till we meet
again.
Rest in peace,
son.
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