Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

Jaiden and even put a meal out for him. Probably wasn’t until after Christmas that you didn’t say ‘Jaiden’ and everyone starts crying.”
    Several months later, while wandering through the YMCA before the summer break, Pamela was struck by how many art projects weredevoted to Jaiden. “There’d be these hearts with ‘Jaiden’ on them or little wings with his name or crosses that say ‘Rest in Peace, Jaiden.’ I wasn’t even really looking for them. But once I started noticing them they were everywhere.”

    A MY S ANDERS AND N ICOLE are like sisters. “We have a lot in common,” Amy explains. “We are both single moms. We both have biracial children. We were both struggling. She didn’t have family she was close to in Ohio, and neither did I. So we became like this team.” It was a very modern family. Two white women, coparenting their multiracial brood, who effectively grew up with two straight moms.
    Sometimes Nicole might work two jobs and Amy would have the kids overnight and during the day, or vice versa. They kept them in the same schools. If any of them were in trouble, the school would call either mom. They raised the boys together like brothers. They didn’t need to pack bags to go to each other’s house—they always had stuff there. Amy’s youngest was a daughter, and shortly after she was born Nicole became pregnant with Jaiden. They were close in every way until Amy’s move to Houston.
    Back in Grove City, Jaiden was being kept on life support until the doctors could remove his organs for donation. They wouldn’t declare him dead until they had done a test for brain activity. Nicole asked the doctors to put it off until Amy could get there from Houston. That would also give Jaiden’s paternal grandmother time to arrive from Akron. It was only a two-hour drive, but she kept having to pull over to cry.
    When Amy broke the news to her kids, her sons Kamry and Kayaan started hitting things. Kayaan called Jarid. “Bro,” said Kayaan. “Bro,” said Jarid. “Literally me and him don’t talk,” explains Kayaan. “We just say, ‘Bro.’” But after a while they couldn’t even say that. They just sobbed until Jarid could get it together to ask, “When are you coming?” “We’ll be there right now,” said Kayaan. “Right now, man.”
    It takes nineteen hours to drive from Houston to Grove City. They stopped for gas and one meal. Almost a full day of silence and griefjammed in a car. They made it to the hospital by early morning. When they walked into the hospital room, it was packed. “Everyone’s looking at us. Everyone’s crying. No one says anything,” recalls Kayaan. “After that brief pause they cried and hugged. Finally someone said something and conversation started.” Jaiden looked like he was sleeping, says Amy. “He was breathing. His heart was beating. The swelling had gone down. His flesh was warm. It was hard to believe he wasn’t going to go home with us.”
    Jaiden was pronounced dead at 3:47 p.m. on Saturday, November 23. Once his death was official they could start seeking out recipients for his organs. It took a day for all the different medical teams from as far afield as Delaware and California to get to the hospital. (His lungs found a home in a girl from St. Louis.) The long wait evolved into an affair similar to an Irish wake—only without the coffin. Nicole and the boys were with him on and off the whole time. Nicole would lie with him until she couldn’t bear the fact that his eyes would no longer open, and then she would ask Amy to take over while she went for a walk. By the time they took him away to the operating room to remove his organs the whole family was there.
    Jaiden hadn’t had much of a relationship with his father, Rosell Dixon III, said Nicole, but the relationship he did have was pretty good. (Rosell didn’t respond to requests for an interview.) They were never close but he would go over sometimes to play with his sisters, who