Thanks To A Great Life

The Untold Daughter

I died on February, 14th, 1997, the day after my birth. Marie and Robert had just brought me home from the Mary Brook's Hospital. It was 1:24 PM. Robert had stayed home from work that day to play and spend time with the baby. While Marie was washing dishes, Robert was watching me.

"Hello Hope," He said, "Do you like your new toys?"

I responded with a series of grunts, squirms, and giggles. Robert smiled at that.

"She's perfect," Robert commented towards Marie.

"She is," she responded.

Throughout that day both of my parents played with me, gave me hugs and kisses, and fed me. At 7:30 Marie and Robert put me to sleep in the nursery and went off to bed themselves. They had had a huge day with me and couldn't wait for the next. They fell asleep instantly.

At 10:30, Marie had woken up in the middle of the soundless night to check on me. She half-consciously walked over to my beautiful nursery. The full moon was out and sent small streams of moonlight through my window. All of my new, fresh clothes were folded into my drawers and a warm baby bottle sat on top of the dresser if I ever woke up and got hungry. In the cradle I lay soundless. Layers after layers of blankets rest over me. Under my head is a a pillow, made especially for me by my mother, embroidered in the corner it said:

Everyone needs a little Hope

Marie had picked me up from the cradle and hugged me tight. Instantly, she knew something was wrong. She had felt that I was cold as ice even though I had so many blankets on. I wasn't waking up. She shook my hand frantically and kept saying my name to wake me.

"Hope! Hope, honey? Hope, please wake up!"

My mother put her ear to my mouth a found I wasn't breathing.

Marie was terrified she quickly ran to her husband and told him to call 911.

The ambulance arrived in 5 minutes after the call.

Marie and Robert were both escorted, along with me to the Mary Brooke's Hospital, the same hospital I was born in. I was immediately worked on with the doctor.

Marie and Robert were thinking of so many things as I was in the medical room. A thousand thoughts raced through their minds. What's going to happen when the doctor comes out to tell us the news. Will Hope live? Would she have to suffer through some sort of disease for the rest of her life? Would she be handicapped? what would happen if she lived a short life because of this? Or worse, what would happen if she didn't live at all?

After hours of anticipation the doctor gave my parents grave news.

"My apologies, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, I did everything I could."

At the words "my apologies" Marie and Robert had broken down in tears.

No matter what the doctor had done for me, it didn't work. I wasn't responding to the medication he was giving me and none of the paddles he was working with could get me to breathe again. Even CPR was useless to my heart. The doctor had said that I had died from SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It's where the heart stops working and you stop breathing.

My parents were, well, heartbroken. They went into the room where I lay. They cradled me in their arms and cried tears that would fall off their cheeks and land on my cold ones. After an hour or so they both kissed me goodnight and went home, baby-less.

Both of them didn't get any sleep that night. The passing of Hope was horrible on them. Marie kept thinking of all the birthdays that would never come. The friends she wouldn't make. The collage she would fail to go to. The life she would have.

Marie remembered how cold I was when she found I wasn't breathing. The doctor said I was almost dead when we arrived at the hospital. Marie kept blaming herself for this. Kept guilting herself into thinking she should have been quicker. That if she just could have woken up sooner I would have lived.

I was supposed to be a surprise to the Doe's friends and family but no one had ever found out that I ever existed. That I ever died. My parents never shared the awful happening of my life and death. That I never really got to live.

But they were wrong. I do have a life, one that they'll never know of...