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    Billy's Story: Every Parent's Nightmare—The Loss of a Child
    Billy's Story: Every Parent's Nightmare—The Loss of a Child
    Billy's Story: Every Parent's Nightmare—The Loss of a Child
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    Billy's Story: Every Parent's Nightmare—The Loss of a Child

    By Judith Golightly

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    About this ebook

    Judith Golightly relates her heart-wrenching personal experience of caring for a seriously ill child and dealing with his loss. In this sensitive, compassionate, and uplifting true story, she provides help and hope for others.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateOct 28, 2013
    ISBN9781490813325
    Billy's Story: Every Parent's Nightmare—The Loss of a Child
    Author

    Judith Golightly

    Judith Golightly is a wife, mother and grandmother who lives in Saint Charles, MO, and writes non-fiction human interest, self-help books. She worked in Army and civilian aviation fields for over 40 years before retiring in 2012. She has a Business Degree from Webster University. Judith has compassion for parents who have lost children, having lost her first son to cancer when he was five years old. After retiring, she felt compelled to finish writing her book, “Billy’s Story – Every Parent’s Nightmare – The Loss of a Child,” to encourage others who have lost children. This book was published in November 2013 and has received top ratings from readers: http://billysstory.com/

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      Book preview

      Billy's Story - Judith Golightly

      BILLY’S STORY

      Every Parent’s Nightmare—The Loss of a Child

      01R.jpg

      JUDITH GOLIGHTLY

      24623.png

      Copyright © 2013 Judith Golightly.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Bible Legend:

      NASB: New American Standard Bible

      NIV: New International Version

      NKJV: New King James Version

      NLT: New Living Translation

      TLB: The Living Bible

      WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      WestBow Press

      A Division of Thomas Nelson

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.westbowpress.com

      1 (866) 928-1240

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4908-1331-8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4908-1332-5 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918911

      WestBow Press rev. date: 10/24/2013

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Prologue

      Chapter 1   The Perfect Family

      Chapter 2   Troubles Begin

      Chapter 3   Our Little Man

      Chapter 4   A New Home

      Chapter 5   The Light Goes On

      Chapter 6   Nearing the End

      Chapter 7   The Battle Ends

      Chapter 8   Searching for Answers

      Chapter 9   Dealing with the Loss

      Chapter 10   No Coincidence

      Chapter 11   Comfort and Hope

      Chapter 12   God’s Plan

      Chapter 13   Final Thoughts

      Chapter 14   Afterword

      Appendix

      Endnotes

      This book is dedicated to all families who have lost children. My purpose in writing it is to help people cope with the loss of a child. This is the true story about my son, Billy. It’s Billy’s story.

      Acknowledgments

      With deep appreciation and thanks to Tom Jablonski and Chaplain Richard Perkins, who were the people most instrumental in my becoming a Christian. Also, I want to thank all of the people who prayed for me and my family before, during, and after the events depicted in this story and those who sent encouraging letters, cards, and poems during this journey. Some people’s names have been changed in this story to protect their identity.

      Prologue

      My husband, Bill, came home from Children’s Hospital one day in May of 1976 and told me that we had finally received a definitive diagnosis for our three-year-old son, Billy. The pediatric oncologist at the hospital had told Bill that Billy had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I was in shock. I was numb. I knew that something was seriously wrong with Billy, but I had never dreamed that it could be cancer! All kinds of thoughts flooded my mind. I wondered how long we would have left with Billy. I asked Bill if he thought we could take Billy to Disney World in his condition. Then I started to sob, and Bill held me close.

      Chapter 1

      The Perfect Family

      Wow! Look at that baby! I wonder what the parents look like. These were the comments that Bill heard as he looked at our first child, Billy, through the nursery window at the hospital.

      I’m the father, he told the couple who had made the comments.

      Well, you aren’t very big, they said.

      Bill replied, Neither is my wife.

      Billy weighed ten pounds twelve ounces and was twenty-three inches long when he was born in August 1972. I had heard that the size of a newborn was hereditary, so I used to tell Bill that it was his fault that Billy was such a big baby, because all of Bill’s siblings had weighed around nine to ten pounds.

      The nurse in the delivery room commented, If you can judge how big a child is going to be when he grows up by the size of his feet, as you can with puppies, this baby is going to be big! Billy’s feet at birth were a little over three inches long. He was only able to wear a newborn size for about two weeks, and then he began popping open the snaps on his pajamas.

      Billy’s name was William Arthur (William, after his father, and Arthur, after my maternal grandfather), but we called him Billy or our little man. Because Billy was so big at birth, he was hungry all the time. We brought him home from the hospital, and I didn’t get much sleep because Billy woke up every two to three hours, wanting to eat (that continued for months). Finally, Bill and I asked our pediatrician if we could feed Billy baby cereal in addition to his bottle. She allowed us to begin doing that when he was eight days old. Billy got his first tooth when he was three months old. I think that was because he was ready for solid food.

      *      *      *

      02R.jpg

      Billy—13 days old

      Bill and I met through a computer dating service in 1967, when that was a new way to meet people. Within a month of dating, Bill asked me to marry him. He wanted to elope, but I didn’t feel I knew him well enough to marry that soon. I convinced him that we should get engaged—and wait at least nine months—to give us time to get to know each other better.

      Bill and I were from entirely different backgrounds. Bill was the oldest of six children. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but he was raised in the country and went to school in a one-room schoolhouse. Their farmhouse had no indoor plumbing, and no electricity, and they cooked and heated the house with a wood-burning stove. When Bill was seven years old, his family’s house burned down, and they lost everything except the clothes on their backs. At the time of the fire, Bill was only wearing his pajamas and a hat with earmuffs. When he was eight, he had to

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