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This is going to be a very bad day!” Those were Austin’s words to me as I woke him just before dawn on Friday, August 3, 2007. I had a teachers’ meeting I needed to attend in our small town
Later, Jack described Austin’s face as a look of sadness. It was so uncharacteristic of Austin that Jack wondered if something terrible had happened at daycare.
About five minutes later, I heard a loud BOOM! The vibration was so loud, it made me tremble. I released the bail bar, silencing the mower into an eerie silence. Was that a gunshot? I glanced at my watch. It was about 8:05 p.m.
Is my family okay? I wondered. The muscles in my arms tensed. I paused, listening for unusual noises. Finally, I thought I heard my dad shout, “We’re okay down here!” so I restarted the mower and began another lap even though my heart pounded so hard I could barely breathe.
About six seconds later, there was another loud, teeth-rattling BOOM! Again, my body vibrated from the sound, and my mind filled with anger. Whoever is doing this should know better than to shoot a gun inside city limits. What is going on? Who is discharging a firearm this close to my home? As I turned the corner of my front y...
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“Austin! Someone sh—shot him. Austin!” Dad gasped. The roar of the lawnmower combined with the rumble of the Polaris muffled my dad’s words into a slur of vague and indiscernible mumblings. “What?” I asked.
Shooter. Shooter. The words sank into my soul. Someone shot my baby? But who would do such a horrible thing? Why would someone shoot my five-year-old boy?
Mama, this is going to be a very bad day. “Austin was right when he said this was going to be a very bad day. How? How did he know?”
God bless our family and friends who waited with us until twothirty in the morning. In total, nearly one hundred people came to the hospital to support our family in a time of need. I don’t think anyone will ever realize how much this meant to us because we didn’t have to grieve alone.
Noble, Oklahoma, had a record amount of rainfall during the summer of 2007, so the dock where my son stood at the time floated higher than usual. If it hadn’t rained so much and raised the dock, would my son still be alive?
“Noble Pond” was a wonderful gift. [Link: https://www.chrisrogerson.com/works/noblepond].
INE MONTHS AFTER AUSTIN PASSED, we welcomed our third son, Gabriel Jeremiah Haley, on Friday, May 16, 2008. He was six pounds twelve ounces and nineteen inches long.
His voice was loud and clear, and he spoke so I understood every word. “Don’t worry, my daughter. You will have a baby girl, and you will call her... Mikayla Ruth Haley.”
www.chrisrogerson.com/works/noble-pond.
https://reneehaley.com
