caleb
a really tragic thing happened to our family over memorial day weekend. i didn't make an entry about it right away because i just didn't really know what to say at the time, but i feel like i can write about it now without feeling too strange.
i have an aunt and uncle who've adopted 4 kids, in addition to their biological son. two girls from china (separate adoptions) and twin boys from korea. my aunt took three of the kids up to duluth for the holiday weekend to visit her family. they were staying at a hotel there, and one of the twins, caleb, fell into the pool somehow. he was under water for a really long time, and when the paramedics came his heart wasn't beating. he was technically dead for 31 minutes, until they revived him after getting to the hospital. they kept him on life support for awhile, but couldn't stop his brain from swelling. he died in the hospital a week after the incident. when there was no chance of brain activity, everyone said goodbye and they let him go. he was only four - he died just a few days before the fifth birthday he would have shared with his twin brother, aidan.
i hadn't had many chances to spend time with my younger cousins when i lived in chicago, but since moving back to minnesota i've been able to see them a lot more. i saw caleb the weekend before they went to duluth, and just a few days after the funeral we got our pictures back from the photolab from that weekend. out of all those kids, he was definitely the clown - in all of the pictures he's poking his head into the shot.
it's totally heartbreaking to think about what kind of life he would have had, what his twin brother's life is going to be like without him, and how dreadful it must be for a parent to lose a child. i don't really have much else to say about it. it's tragic and has been weighing on my heart since it happened. i have never been to a more sad funeral, and i've been to plenty of them. he definitely touched a lot of people's lives, especially considering that he only had 4 years to do it.