Remembering

This morning, before I opened my eyes, I felt dread.

Last year on the last day of January, our neighbors' little girl died unexpectedly.

Though we have many happy memories of her, today what I'm feeling is sadness.

I remember the grief of her Family.
I think about tragedy.
I realize anew how Life can shift from ordinary to emergency in just one breath.

Several of you have asked me about what caused C's death.

Some have wondered how the family is coping.

The coroner ruled that C, who had just celebrated her 5th birthday the month before, died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). This seems impossible to us, but that was the official finding. A healthy child, she stopped breathing sometime just prior to when her parents tried to awaken her for preschool. There was no warning, no sound, no hint that she was taking her last breath. Though the medics managed to restart her heart, the beat could not be sustained. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. 

Right after C's death, the Family left their house in our neighborhood and stayed near relatives in Florida.
They returned briefly in the spring, but they could not live in the house where their child died.
They moved with their other daughter, now three, to a college town several hours away.

I've suffered losses, but none as searing and scarring as the death of a child.

Life goes on.

But,
sometimes, it's irrevocably altered.

I'm remembering a bright, imaginative, loving child.
Some of her favorite things were:

the color pink
magic wands
fairies

We still have the wands given to us at her Remembrance Service.
Now, our Grandchildren wave them to make magic. 

We think C would approve.