Hello World!!

Our favorite stories and memories of Branson are included with poems or art that speak to us.

My son was born Oct 6th 2004. He had a few moments during his birth that were a little scary. He had his umbilical cord around his neck so they didn’t want him coming out too quickly before the dr could unloop it and they also didn’t want him crying right away so they could remove debris from his airway. This meant that the first few seconds of his birth were very hard for me to watch, he was pale and still and I was so worried, but then his beautiful dark eyes opened up and looked directly into my soul. They were piercing even from across the vast room. His eyes found mine and that connection was life altering to me. He was beautiful and different from other babies. Normally after being born babies sleep for hours. Branson didn’t sleep for 12 hours after being born. He did not cry or fuss, he just looked at everyone and everything around him. Captivated by us and this new world. His dad never left our side and we were in Poudre Valley Hospital for 4 or so days. They were worried about some infections for him and wanted to keep a close eye on us both. At one point before we were to go home the nurses said they wanted to take him to the nursery to let us sleep before we would be on our own. Jeremy didn’t think this was a good idea, but I said well they know more than we do at this point so we should follow their advice. From the moment they took him away he cried. We could hear him in the nursery and they could not console him. Jeremy let this go on for only a short time before saying I am going to get my son. And the minute he did Branson calmed down and settled into his dad’s arms. He completed us and our connection to this sweet soul was intense and solid. I was grateful to be his mother, we were in our 30s when we finally received our baby and he would be our only child. We tried for years before and after and I always said he was perfect so we didn’t need to make another. He had the brightest smile as my chubby little man. He laughed, played and was his own person from the start, but always loved being held and cuddled. He hugged with his whole soul. Even at the age of 14, before he left us, his hugs warmed your heart and he hugged like he meant it. He was protective of others, and a voice for fairness to any person who acted otherwise. Two of my favorite memories of his early days at school were a little friend he made in kindergarten, Jackson Whitworth, was shy and not enjoying kindergarten, and Branson went up to him and told him they were to be friends, which they were until he moved. His mother told me how much it meant to her that Branson befriended her son when he was so small and scared. He did this often. He would notice a person who was nervous or scared or alone and he would step in and do a bit of a comedy routine like falling down or some other laughable thing and give them anything they needed to feel better. Most of the time it was just his friendship. The other memory was of a time I went to his school to visit, and a little girl came up to me as soon as I arrived on the playground. She asked if I was Branson’s mama. I said I was, although I mentally prepared myself for what would come next. Thinking it would be a tale of something he had done. It was. But it was a tale of his kindness. Her words were this…Are you Branson’s mama? Yes. Well he is so nice to me all the time!… and then she ran off to play. She just came to tell me what I already knew, that my son was kind. I watched him talk to a daughter of one of our friends who was maybe 2 years younger than his 7yr old self. He looked directly into her eyes as she spoke and stayed interested in all of her words, holding her hand. She smiled non stop and her eyes sparkled. I thought boy am I in trouble. Girls are not going to stand a chance! But he was just a true person, a kind true person.  I knew as his mother I just needed to protect his self as it came into this world. It was already perfect. He loved animals. He trained a polish rooster at my work to do tricks and ride on his shoulder. He loved that chicken so much and named him AfroDude. Dr. Norwood would take this trained chicken to speak at schools when he went. He also ordered 2 white polish hens to give Branson for the start of his own flock at home, which his dad was not happy about but agreed to because of how much Branson loved them. They were named Bennie and Juevos. They layed the spring after his accident in January and still live in our backyard. He has had a cat named Lolly who we adopted after his 3-year-old self found her in our front yard as a stray. Jeremy hated cats so we were never going to have one, but Branson walked right up to her and picked her up by the front legs as the whole rest of her body dangled to the ground. I panicked as she was a stray and I expected her to react as any other cat and scratch this well-meaning child. NOPE she purred and let him do whatever loving he wanted to give her. She lived with us until she was elderly and passed away. He had many Beta fish all of which he named Bob R Beta… I..II..III you get the picture. He left us a Russian tortoise named Ivan, who will probably outlive us all. He made friends with a candy store owner downtown when He rode with his dog Jimi to get candy. He would ride with him in the basket on the front of his bike until he got too big and then he put him in a child carrier trailer on the back. He and a friend would ride down to see the candy shop owner with his dog in the trailer, sit and talk to him while drinking sodas, and making friends with the patrons when they came in. The owner said as soon as he was old enough to have a job he could come work at the store. He would always load up his trailer with sodas and candy for himself and his friends. But he would never forget to bring a special gift to me…he always had an Ooey Gooey for his mama. 

Schoolwork was always a challenge for him, but he faced it with a brave face and worked through it every year. His last year was 8th grade at Carey Jr High. He had to go to a different Jr high than all of his friends from elementary/kindergarten due to a boundary issue. It was also a difficult time for him making new friends, but he did and found he loved theatre. He was perfect for it as he loved creating stories in writing, comics, and as a little kid, videos of angry bird recreations with my phone. He built worlds upon amazing worlds in Minecraft and other video platforms. He liked spending time online with his gamer friends and pranking people. HE LOVED PRANKS! just ask any of his victims.  He was my favorite person in this world.  He also was well known in 5th, and especially 6th grade, for his awesome teenager stache! everyone knew the kid with the mustache lol…I miss his long fingers and lanky legs and those big ol feet. He was almost as tall as me and definitely had feet that were bigger than mine, a point he was very proud of. He was bigger than his mama. He was creative and quiet but also loved to laugh. He created a sandwich made of two Eggo waffles with peanut butter in between and jelly on the top of the top waffle. He drank orange Fanta from bottles, loved Greek mythology and Starwars. He wore an Indiana Jones outfit for like 2 years, –fedora, satchel, leather jacket, whip and all. He knew all of the Indiana Jones movies by heart and was astounded when he figured out Indiana Jones and Han Solo were the same guy. He and I never missed a comic-con and I made costume after costume for him. He traveled all over with me to places like Hawaii, Florida, Minnesota, and Oregon among others. We had a special thing we did since he was a little one where we would dress up in our jammies and go to the movies, we called them PaMovies. He and his dad shared the same brain…any problems he would have at school, only took his dad sitting with him and going over it in the way they understood to get him over it. We never lived life without him. He was our Son and we were a family, we went together or not at all.  His favorite stuffy was a little dog named Puppy. We lost him once on an adventure, which was NOT good. It was several weeks when I came upon a gift store in Saratoga WY and there he was, the identical stuffy, puppy. Only one problem…he didn’t have a barking noisemaker. I gave him to B thinking he was little and probably wouldn’t notice …wrong. So came the story about how Puppy must have laryngitis?!.. until I could find a barker. Turns out one of his stuffies from Build-a-bear had one, so I got that and surgically implanted it into puppy. It was a bit bigger but surely it would work? Well, he accepted the fact that puppy was a bit rounder in the middle and the bark was a little deeper than it used to be and loved him all the same.  So many memories of my beautiful boy. I could go on forever…. He loved his cousin Chenoa who grew up with him like a sister and went on all of our adventures with us. He even wanted to fight her ex-boyfriend when he saw him as a baker at Albertsons one day. He asked me, “Mom can I give him a dirty look since I can’t fight him?” I indulged him and if you ever saw Forrest Gump you can picture the look this little boy gave this guy. He was very protective of everyone he loved.  I was so looking forward to the man he would become. 

His life stopped on Jan 13th 2019. He was skiing with his dad at Snowy Range Ski Area. They had gotten up early in the morning and headed up, with plans to be done by the afternoon. I was supposed to go with them but I felt I would just slow them down and dampen their fun time. I hugged him tight and told Jeremy to bring him back safe, after all he was the only one I have ever made, he promised he would.  I had just gotten him a new helmet for skiing at Christmas. His dad had taken him skiing since he was big enough to stand on skis. He had taken several professional lessons over the years and was great on skis. They were going down a run on the backside of the mountain when he hit ice and went into the trees uncontrolled. He hit trees and sustained critical head injuries to his left side. He also had several other injuries including a broken femur and chest injuries. His father had to hike backwards to get to him but did quickly and started CPR as soon as he made it to him. He was aided by a nurse who saw the accident and came up right away. The ski patrol removed him by ski machine while Jeremy had to get back on the lift to get back to the lodge and the emergency station. He called me after the patrol had taken Branson. He said they had put him on the compression machine but said it didn’t look like they would get him to breath again. I begged him not to let them stop.  I called Sara Serelson–one of my closest friends and Colleen Boughton my best friend…told them what was happening and they were there with me within 15 mins. We got in the car and raced to the mountain to be with my son. I of course was hysterical reaching out to family on the way. Jeremy called again before we made it to Centennial and said my son had died. When I finally got to the first aid station he was gone and my husband was catatonic. I looked at my broken boy laying under the machine in his yellow onsie we bought to wear to pamovies, lifeless and bloody.  I held him the best I could and kissed him. How could this be? How could this be my son? I spent the next year realing and trying to manage a life so different than I had before or ever planned on having. I needed something to stop all the endings. After a year it felt like life had become about lasts. The last time we ever did this or that with B. I needed to have even one beginning that kept me from believing my son was gone forever. So I started his kindness campaign. I wanted his light to be in this world even if his body no longer was. I wanted to know that he was here, that he was so loved and loved others and I wanted others to know him too, even if it was a picture on a card that someone gave them while doing something kind in his name. I wanted the whole world to know and keep knowing. It would also give me a way to talk about his memory and keep him forefront in my life in a positive way. I didn’t want to keep remembering the end of his life or the absence of his presence.  The campaign deserves to grow as he would have and to bring light to the world as he did and would have.

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