I knew we would meet exactly three minutes before we in fact did. I got a call on a special phone at work late last night telling me you were an estimated age of 3 and you had been shot in your chest and were not breathing. That was all I knew, but that was enough to get my attention—all of it. The truth is I had been preparing to meet you for many years, readying myself in every way I could to take the very best possible care of you in the seconds that mattered most if we should ever meet under these circumstances—even though I never EVER wished we would.

In those three minutes before you arrived, we started methodically—albeit furiously—to prepare for you. I invited a lot of the smartest and most talented people I work with to meet you, too. I knew I would never be able to take care of you alone, so I sent out an announcement to only the best of the best in my special hospital telling them to come running so we would all be ready and waiting for you when you rolled in. To go ahead and order the medications and blood we thought you might urgently need, we had to give you a name in our computer. Nobody could tell us your actual name yet, so we entered “Baby Boy Unknown”—which got shortened and rearranged in computer language to “UNKNOWN, BB.”

And then we met.

I doubt you remember me or any of the details from the time you were in our trauma room, but if you do, then I’m relieved that you know how hard we tried to save you and how motivated and determined we were to try even harder when we felt your pulse return for the first time. If you don’t, then don’t worry. Sometimes when our bodies are very very sick, they aren’t able to know what’s going on around them. Maybe, though, you would recognize my voice? It was the one coming from the foot of your bed making sure we were all working together to do everything and anything we possibly could for you. Or maybe you would recognize it as the one right beside you as we shuttled down the hall towards the elevator and operating room—the one asking all those people in the hallway if anyone from your family was there to give you a kiss? Anyone? To which came the reply, from a voice I did not know but cannot forget, “There is no one here. No one.”

You see, during all that training I told you about before, and even more in the years since, I also learned how to talk with parents during times like this—times when their kids are so incredibly sick that we don’t even know if they will ever wake up. As much as I have hated those conversations, I realize now that the scenario I lived with you is even harder, and one I was never taught how to deal with. One where I couldn’t explain to or update anyone about you and your body and what we had done and where we were headed and where they could sit, or stand, or alternate sitting and standing and pacing the floor waiting for you. The one where no one could kiss you goodbye or scream for you in deafening pain or drip heavy tears of their own down your face for you—your sweet, young, innocent, flawless face. The one where no one could even call out for you and let us hear your name.

In this unforgivable scenario, you did not die from the force of cars colliding with each other on a slippery street early one morning or with a tree around a curve on a snowy night. You did not die by accident. You did not die from a rare genetic disease for which a cure has yet to be mastered or even from a heartbreaking form of childhood cancer for which rounds and rounds of chemotherapy were no match. You did not die after a long battle with a chronic disease or even after a short fight with an acute, overwhelming illness. You died because you were murdered. You were shot with your mother, the one who should have—and would have if she could have—been there to tell me your name.

I learn now from the news that the killing was not random and that you died in the largest mass murder our city has seen in years. A hate crime or drugs they say, but who could possibly hate a 3-year-old boy? Who could ever think you would have had anything at all to do with their drugs?

I am told there was nothing we could have done to save you. But who could have saved you? And, even more importantly, who should have? That question I ask now, not as one of your doctors, but as your heartbroken neighbor and disgusted fellow citizen of humanity.

I find some solace in the knowledge that you did not in fact die alone in our operating room. Every single part of you except your very strong young heart died before we even met. You died in the arms of your mother.

I have met your aunt and know now you have family who are alive, who loved you tremendously, and who are grieving deeply over your devastating death. She confirmed that you did indeed have the most spirited and sweetest of hearts and that you played like a big boy with your older cousins. She told me that even as much as you loved playing, you would intermittently run into the kitchen just to be next to your mom for a few seconds. I guess we all sometimes act bigger than we feel and deserve someone in the next room who makes us feel safe. I’m relieved to know that your mom was that person for you. Your aunt told me you had recently celebrated your 2nd, not your 3rd, birthday. Your mom had wanted to do something special for you but didn’t have much money, so she took you to the beach!

I also learned you had just—two days before you died—started to say your very own name.

And now, I finally also know your name. You were truly a precious baby boy, but you were not unknown. You were not unloved. And you will not be forgotten.