Chapter 12 - The End

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Not long after Max's brain haemorrhage I made him a promise. This action was to have a serious impact on the next two years of my life. I knew that this promise had the potential to destroy me, this was a killer promise, a do-or-die promise.

I walked up from the kitchen to Max's room and knelt by his bed. It was difficult to tell if he was comatose or asleep. I do not know if he heard me. I suspect not. It did not matter. He was to be a silent witness to my pledge. It had to be made in front of him because otherwise it would have no meaning. This was like selling your soul to the Devil because there could be no going back.

"Maxie, my little one. I love you so so much. I have tried so hard to make you well again but I cannot do that. You have fought so hard and quietly and without complaint. I don't know how you do it. Remember when you said that they must do something to stop little children dying. Well I am going to make a promise to you. I promise to do something for the other children. I promise to make a difference."

I left him sleeping and went away and wept.

I had thought about the promise. I knew that it had to be achievable or I would never come to terms with it. "Making a difference'. What does that mean? It can mean anything you like. It had to. These were impossible times. To really make a difference is almost impossible feat. At the time I realised that this promise might consume my whole life.

The way I intended to keep my promise to Max involved the building of a very complex software system capable of generating its own programs to resolve problems submitted to the system. I spent two years and hundreds of hours working on this project. It consumed all my spare time and also involved the reading of about a hundred and twenty books on genetics, evolution and complexity theory.

It was therapeutic. It gave me a focus. It took me away from the here and now. It was moving forward. I felt that as long as I had a direction, a purpose, then I could move beyond the grief. As time progressed it became more and more apparent that what I was trying to achieve was just not achievable on my own while working in a full time job. As time progressed and I started to climb towards the light, the promise lost its absoluteness and I realised that my life could, indeed must, continue even if I did not finish the project. The project was eventually abandoned. I decided to write this book instead because it was a more realistic objective.

Max had another major brain haemorrhage a couple of days before he died. That was the last time we saw him as a sentient child. We felt cheated by this bleed. We wanted to be there with him as he slipped away. We wanted him to know that we were there for him.

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