Joseph Thomas Surprenant

Born on Tuesday June 23, 1981.

 

Joseph Thomas Surprenant was born on Tuesday June 23 1981. He came in at 5 lbs. and 0 ounces, 19 inches long. Joseph was named after his grandfathers. His first name came from my dad Joseph L. Surprenant who was alive at the time, His Middle name came from his mothers father Thomas Wright who had passed away years before. Joseph lost a couple of ounces while in the hospital and under Massachusetts law he could not leave the hospital unless he weighed at least 5 lbs. So i was determined to take him home. The night before i brought Chinese food to the hospital and let him chew on a beef Teriyaki to fatten him up. It worked we took our baby boy home. He was so small he had a sock on his head to keep the heat in.

Joseph was a typical baby up at night wanting his bottle and to be fed which i did regularly and loved every minute of it.

When Joseph was about 2 he developed a purplish lump on the fold between his leg and stomach. We took him to the doctor who put him on antibiotics and this did not cure the problem. The doctor talked all kinds of things including cancer. We thought Joe was going to die. After about  2 weeks Joe had surgery to drain the lump. It came back as a infected lymph node. After it drained and more powerful antibiotics Joe was fine. What a relief.

The date says 1984, its hard to know exactly the date and years of the events i will write about here.

 

Joseph had a normal childhood, he played Little league baseball, and he was good. I remember 1 particular game Joe was pitching, he got a no hitter and gave up 2 walks to two girls. I think he didn't want to let a girl break his no hitter LOL. In the same game Joe hit the leagues only home run that actually left the ball park. I can still see him clearly pitching and that home run it was great. He got his name in the newspaper for that.

 

When Joe was about 12 he brought a rusty mini bike home. I asked him what you plan on doing with that, He told me "i,m going to fix it". I said OK never thinking he could do it. Well after about a week he had it almost running. He told me he needed this spring to make it work right. i said OK lets go get 1. We went to about 3 or 4 hardware stores but couldn't find 1. So Joe made something instead and he got the darn thing running and it ran good.

Passed away on Tuesday April 2, 2009.

 

This was the saddest and hardest day i had ever had in my life. To get a call telling you your son died is the most traumatic thing any person could endure. I went into shock. I didn't know what was up or down. A day i wish had never came.