I Kissed My 2-Year-Old Goodbye Before His Sitter Drove Away. It Was The Last Time I Saw Him

That July afternoon didn’t feel remarkable in any way. I was a 22‑year‑old single mother working two jobs, doing what young mothers do – surviving, pushing, loving my boys with whatever energy I had left.

Life was busy, loud and messy. I didn’t know I was taking it for granted. You never do until the world just stops.

My two‑year‑old son was going “just up the road” to a friend’s grandparents’ house for dinner – with a sitter I trusted, someone who had watched him countless times. It was supposed to be a simple evening. I kissed him goodbye without thinking that it might be the last time.

I was heading to work in the car with a friend and coworker when her phone rang. Our route took us down a road less than a mile from the multigenerational family home where I was living at the time. Her niece was calling to tell us the road ahead was blocked off, that something was on fire. 

“I think it’s a car.”

I don’t know how to explain what happened next, except to say that a mother’s intuition is real. I knew, I felt it in my body. Before I saw the car, before I saw the tree, before I saw the smoke curling into the sky – I knew. Time stopped, and I started screaming, “It’s my son. He’s in that car.”

When we reached the blocked road, I didn’t wait for instructions. I jumped out of the car, threw my purse onto the pavement, and ran. I could barely see through the tears, but I could see enough: the organised chaos of fire trucks and state troopers. In that moment, it felt like the world was collapsing in on itself.

Two troopers stopped me before I could reach the burning car. I begged them to tell me which ambulance my son was in. They didn’t answer me. One finally asked me: if my son had been in the car, where would he have been sitting? 

“Back seat, passenger side, in his car seat,” I quickly answered. The way they looked at each other told me everything before their words did.

My legs gave out. I hit the ground and screamed until my throat burned. I’ll never forget the gravel under my hands, the heat from the fire, the sound of radios crackling. I remember thinking, over and over, “This can’t be real.” But it was. And in that moment, the Before part of my life ended.

I called my mother, but I couldn’t get the words out. I just cried in agony. When she finally arrived, I collapsed into her arms. I stayed at the edge of the caution tape for hours – long after the sun went down, long after the crowd thinned. I refused to leave. I didn’t want my son to be alone. I didn’t know if his soul was still there or already gone, but I needed to stay with him until they took his body away. 

Before he died, my son was pure light. He laughed at everything – the kind of laugh that made strangers turn their heads and smile. He loved the rain, and every time it started, he would sing “Rain, rain, go away,” in that tiny toddler voice that made the whole world feel softer. He called fruit snacks “nacks” and would yell for them with a confidence that made me laugh even on the hardest days. To know him was to love him, and everyone did.

He had bright blue eyes and dimples that showed up before his smile did. He loved being outside, riding around on his little John Deere tractor like he owned the whole yard. And every night, without fail, he had to sleep with me. He’d curl his finger around the hair at the back of my neck to fall asleep – a habit he started as a baby and never grew out of. It was his way of anchoring himself to me, and me to him.

Being his mother was the best thing I have ever been and ever done. Even after everything that came after, that part hasn’t changed.

In the days that followed, time stopped behaving normally. I barely slept. I didn’t eat. I woke up each morning hoping it had been a nightmare, only to feel the truth hit me again like a physical blow. My house filled with people – family, friends, neighbours, even strangers who had seen the story on the news or heard it on the radio – but I felt completely alone inside my body.

I sat on the porch swing, the same one where I used to rock him to sleep, feeling like the world was moving around me while I stayed frozen. Everything became a task I wasn’t ready for: calling the funeral home, choosing photos for the slideshow, hearing the coroner explain what had happened. I was 22 years old, planning a funeral for my two‑year‑old son. There is no version of that sentence that makes sense.

People kept telling me I was strong, but I didn’t feel strong. I felt hollow. I felt like I had left my body at the crash site and was walking around in whatever was left. I didn’t know how to be a mother to my surviving son when every time I looked at him, I saw the brother he had lost. I didn’t know how to be a daughter, a friend or even a person. Grief didn’t just break me – it unmade me.

Before my son died, I was a different version of myself – someone I barely recognise now. I was happy in a way that felt effortless. I was loving, energetic, enthusiastic about life, the kind of mother who danced in the kitchen and laughed easily. I didn’t know how fragile that version of me was. I didn’t know she could disappear in a single moment.

After the accident, everything changed. I became anxious, sleepless, constantly on edge. Grief didn’t just break my heart – it rewired my entire nervous system. I moved through the world like someone waiting for the next blow. Once the worst thing had already happened, I knew something like it could happen again at any moment.

That fear and emptiness made me vulnerable in ways I didn’t understand at the time. I fell into a relationship that grew out of trauma, not love – a bond built on pain, control and the belief that I didn’t deserve anything better. When that ended, I met someone who felt like a soulmate, someone who showed me gentleness after years of chaos. Losing him, too, carved another fault line through my life.

The Before me was carefree. The After me is someone who has survived more than she ever should have had to. But she’s still here. And that counts for something.

Losing my son forced me to rebuild myself from pieces I never expected to hold. I didn’t come out of grief wiser or stronger. I came out raw, unsteady and changed in ways I didn’t have a language for. But over time, I learned that survival isn’t a single moment. It’s a thousand small choices to keep going, even when you don’t recognise the person you’ve become.

Grief doesn’t end, but it does evolve. It becomes something you learn to carry. It becomes part of the way you move through the world. My son’s life was short, but it changed me in ways that still matter. 

I am not the woman I was before July of 2013. I never will be. But I am still here. And every day that I choose to keep going is a day that honours him. 

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