Hard to see/Difficult to read

The name of today's post has to do with the document below.  It is something I wish did not exist.  The typeface is very small, so I will point out the main reason for sharing something so.... I'm not sure I even have the words.  It is Lucas's death certificate.  It is difficult to read because this is faxed copy, but it is also hard to set eyes on the death certificate of a 4 month old baby.  The boxes I would like attention drawn to are at the very bottom.

On the left, there is a line that reads:
Immediate cause of death                              A.  CLOSED HEAD INJURY

Sequentially list conditions, if any,                B.  BLUNT IMPACT TO HEAD
leading to the cause on line A


Then on the right hand side by those lines, it reads:
Approximate interval
(onset to death)

DAYS

Here is the copy:

If you click on it, it should enlarge.  It's the only copy I have right now, and hopefully I can get a better one that is more legible.  The reason this is important is because the ONLY reason Brent is still in jail is that he was with Lucas when he became unresponsive.  If you are familiar with Shaken Baby Syndrome or read the post from yesterday, you will know that this type of injury takes time to manifest itself.  They cannot pinpoint when the event that caused Lucas's death happened.  The Medical Examiner, in this document, states that it was "days", and in a transcript from a phone conversation (that hopefully I will get a copy of, along with the police report this weekend) he states that it could have been any time in the previous 24 hours.  This removes, along with the other statements in the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the probable cause for detaining my brother.


One thing I like to read when I'm upset about this is The Little Prince, by Antoine de St. Exupery.

"Ah, little prince, dear little prince! I love to hear that laughter!"

"That is my present. Just that. It will be as it was when we drank the water . . ."

"What are you trying to say?"

"All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--"

"What are you trying to say?"

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You--only you--will have stars that can laugh!"

And he laughed again.

"And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you . . ."

And he laughed again.

"It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh . . ." 

This is how I want to remember him.  Laughing somewhere up in the stars.

Thank you for reading. 

---jaime