THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406270057
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: Medium
Not in the midst of the latest temper tantrum, nor when you're holding your child's arm at immunization time. Not that kind of courage.
{REST} But courage in the face of the possibilities that surface in other parents' stories: Parents of teenagers who run away. Or parents whose children are caught in custody battles, or struggling with chronic illnesses. Parents who endure what most of us never dare imagine, planning their child's funeral.
Mostly we don't allow our minds to light on that kind of courage for long. It was never a thought that lingered in the minds of Kathy and R.L. Bullock of Chesapeake. Not until the September day three years ago when they got the emergency call about their 15-year-old son, Bryan.
At the end of a physical education class, the teenager sat down in the locker room and told a friend he felt a head rush. He stood up and fell face forward.
The heart of a boy who'd been the picture of health for 15 years had stopped.
Medical technicians revived him at the scene, only to have his heart stop again. He was taken to the hospital and sustained on life support until the Bullocks made the decision no parent wants to make.
To let their son die. ``Bryan was already gone - they were just maintaining his body,'' Kathy said.
You'd like to think life would get easier. Kathy remembers that months later, a family friend wrote to ask if she were ``over'' it yet.
An innocent question, yet one that shows how little the rest of us really understand. Because you don't ever get over it. It's never a steady ride back up to normal. You just find ways to deal with it better. Find things that help you forget for a while, to soothe your soul. Find a ``new normal,'' as the Bullocks put it.
For them, one way has been to ask friends to have electrocardiograms done of their children, something the Bullocks think might have picked up the undetected condition that Bryan had, Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, a congenital heart defect.
But just when they think they can smile again without reservation, a milestone comes up. This month, it was high school graduation, bringing with it a wave of tender moments.
The gift-buying for Bryan's friends. Seeing neighborhood teenagers in prom dresses and tuxes, posing in front yards for pictures. The invitations to a graduation at which the Bullocks would only be able to focus on a chair where their son should have been. In the end, they decided not to go.
What helps them through? God. Their three younger children. And the friends of Bryan's who never forgot.
In an age when teenagers' interests flit from one subject to the next, when ``here today, forgotten tomorrow'' seems the motto, Bryan's friends haven't forgotten him.
They raised money to set up a scholarship in Bryan's memory. They left mementos, notes and flowers on his grave, not just at his funeral, but on birthdays, Valentine's Day and anniversaries of his death.
And they kept in touch with his parents, telling the Bullocks about college plans, their prom nights, the preparation for graduation.
In answer to the friend's question asked two years ago, no, the Bullocks haven't gotten over Bryan. And neither have his friends. by CNB