A mother’s pain. Alyssa Scott spoke about the death of her and Nick Cannon‘s 5-month-old son, Zen, for the first time.
“Oh my sweet Zen,” the model, 28, captioned a Wednesday, December 8, Instagram video. “The soreness I felt in my arm from holding you is slowly fading away. It’s a painful reminder that you are no longer here. I caught myself looking in the backseat as I was driving only to see the mirror no longer reflecting your perfect face back at me. When I close a door too loudly I hold my breath and wince knowing a soft cry will shortly follow. It doesn’t come. The silence is deafening. These last five months we have been in this race together. We would hand the baton off to each other. You kept me going. It would be the middle of the night and you would smile at me. A surge of energy would fill my body and pure joy would radiate from within me. We were a team, both determined to see it through.”
Being without the infant “feels unbearable,” the Texas native went on to write, adding, “I can’t. And in this moment I feel myself being carried. By your sister. By God. By complete strangers encouraging me to not give up. It has been an honor and privilege being your mommy. I will love you for eternity. 6•23•21 – 12•5•21.”
The Masked Singer host, 41, announced the passing of his baby boy during the Tuesday, December 7, episode of his talk show. At the time, the comedian explained that he and the model first had the infant examined two months after he was born in June, believing that Zen had a sinus problem. The doctor determined that the little one had a brain tumor requiring immediate surgery.
Around Thanksgiving, Zen’s condition worsened. Cannon said that he held his son for the last time on Sunday, December 5, when he took him to see the ocean in California.
“Alyssa was just, like, the strongest woman I’ve ever seen,” the Wild ‘n Out host said of Scott on Tuesday. “[She] was emotional when she needed to be but was always the best mom and continues to be the best mom possible.”
After Cannon announced Zen’s death, Scott took to her Instagram Stories to share photos and videos of the baby. In one snap, the infant napped next to his sister. “Can you say, ‘Good morning, Daddy?’” Scott asked the baby in one clip as he cooed. “Say, ‘Bye-bye, Daddy.’ Wave bye-bye.”
When speaking about the tragedy, Cannon reflected on Zen’s personality, saying that he was a happy baby. “He was the most loving,” he told the audience. “We called him Z Chilling. He was always smiling. He had the most beautiful spirit.”
Zen was the seventh and youngest of Cannon’s children. The California native also shares shares twins Morocco and Monroe, 10, with ex-wife Mariah Carey, son Golden, 4, and daughter Powerful, 11 months, with Brittany Bell, and twins Zillion and Zion, 5 months, with Abby De La Rosa.
Earlier this fall, the former America’s Got Talent host said that he hasn’t ruled out having more children. “If God sees it that way, then that’s what I’m gonna keep doing,” he told TMZ in September, adding that “essence” is what makes him so fertile.
Two months later, however, the Drumline actor told Dr. Mehmet Oz that he was slightly more on the fence about it. “I don’t know how I’ll feel in five years,” Cannon explained in November. “When people say, ‘Are you going to have more kids?’ that’s a difficult question to ask unless I did have something like a vasectomy. Because I don’t know if I’m going to find love again. I don’t know how deep I’ll go again. I don’t know. You never understand what the universe is going to present to you.”
