twenty-one-year-old, Ivone (ee-von) Flowers, is a hard-working college senior with plans to not only graduate but move out from her parent's home as her journey of adulthood begins.
but one day, as she was walking to her next class, she spotted some...
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_____________ july 6th 2009 _____________
"WHERE IS MY SON?"
Ashley scrambled around the hospital lobby, looking down hallways and pleading with passing nurses.
She was an immigrant from Korea, still acclimating to the new world of the United States, and struggled with her native language. All she could do was ask where her son was and tell any nurse who passed her his name.
She had been in her class when a friend of hers called, saying that her son had started convulsing and blood was dripping from his mouth while playing the Wii.
He had been with his friend, Noel, for the day as his father was at working on the arsenal and she had classes to attend. Her son had struggled with a severe case of anemia, but his primary care doctor had it under control from what she recalled.
Fear flowed through her veins, leading to her desperate pleas for help from anyone who was around. She had called her husband in hopes he'd be there to help her, but he hadn't answered, and she was worried and scared about what to do.
"Ma'am," a woman who looked like her approached her, concern furrowing her eyebrows as she pulled Ashley to the side near the counter where people were lined up.
Ashley gripped the woman's hands, her eyes watering as she felt helpless and needed someone's support to find her young son.
The woman spoke to her in her native tongue, inquiring about what was wrong and who she was looking for. She mentioned how she was at school when she got the call and had no clue what to do. The woman reassured her, guiding her to a nurse seated behind a computer.
She could understand some of what the ladies were saying, but not enough to fully discern it. What she gathered was that her son was ill, something with blood, and he was in room 4. But everything else they said, she couldn't quite understand. The young woman who assisted her grabbed her hands firmly.
"He is very ill, and the doctor doesn't know if he'll make it," her heart dropped, and her legs couldn't hold her up. The woman screamed for help as the devastated mother fell to her knees, her heart pounding outside of her chest. She couldn't even muster the energy to cry as she felt her world was falling apart.
Her love. Her precious baby whom she had only spent 11 years with was slipping away through her fingers. She begged God for it not to be true and begged the nurses and the doctors that her son would live.
By the time she came to, she needed the courage to face her ill son, someone she wanted to protect until her very last breath. So she had to be strong without her husband by her side.
Was this her fault? Maybe she wasn't a good mother and had not been there for him like she should have been.
Ashley was in school to become a teacher. She was 30 years old and finally got back to university after conceiving their son and finally settling in the states. Her husband pushed her to be her greatest and go back to school even though their budget would be tight for a few years. But they were finally stationed in one place for her to comfortably learn.
