Haylee Janice Matheson

My Haylee!
By Tara Matheson

Haylee’s Story

You came into this world so quickly – at 1:15 pm April Fools Day – you came tearing into the delivery room where i was so anxiously awaiting your arrival. Six pounds, thirteen ounces, they told me – nineteen and a half inches long. blue eyes, blonde hair… You were so beautiful! The perfect healthy baby i wished and hoped for for nine months.

I had made vows to you long before you showed up – i’d be the best damned mother the world has ever seen. You’d be my world; and you were. We had it so good . . . You were as “spoiled” as a baby could possibly be. You refused to sleep without mommy, your crib was like a jail to you!

You were so calm, cool and collected, rarely upset, rarely crying – unless you were hungry. it seems that patience was a virtue you never got the chance to develop – but it’s ok! And of course – unless it was bath time, sometimes you hated bath time! But once it was over, and you were all clean, smelling so good, dressed in your little sleeper shirt and tiny pink socks, we’d go for a walk, to see the world.

They all loved you so much! You graced my life for such a short time. But i would not give that 94 days up for ANYTHING else in the world. Sadly….Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is a demon, a monster that snuck up silently while we slept and stole your very breath, your warmth, your life.

FOR NO REASON. A perfect, happy, three-month-two-day-old baby girl chubby and healthy, twelve pounds, nine and a half ounces and 24 inches long – died on July 3rd. My life as i knew it ended that day, my will to live, gone with your soul. Never to hear you laugh, never to see you crawl, never to hear you say “mommy” in a cute little girl voice . . . like the one i hear in my dreams, the one that cries into my thoughts at the most unexpected moments.

Never again to hold you to me as i sleep! Never again to wake up next to you, kiss you, hug you, love you, welcome you to a new day, feed you, change you, bathe you, play with you, take you out to see the world and all the people who loved you so much!

Never again to be enraptured by the flashing dancing singing stars . . . never again to swing swing swing focused so intently on the blue elephant . . . it’s ok, he’s there with you too, to keep you company.

Never to lay with me all day and all night, just watching tv, or sleeping. Never again to gaze upon your angel-face as you so peacefully dreamed of whatever babies like to dream of at that age . . .

Haylee, everyone misses you.

Gramma, Grampa, auntie Katie and auntie Rachel, and of course Myles and the O’Rourkes, they all love you and wish for you back.

All extended family members . . . Great gramma and great grampa, and great granny, and great-aunts and uncles . . .

and of course Nicki, Danny, Carrie, Jackie and anyone else who saw you and fell in love with you,

they didn’t know you that well, but they miss you too.

And i’m sure your dad misses you, despite the fact that he could only show very little, if any, interest in you when he had ample opportunity to do so.

But we had it good together, right? We had it the best!

You could not have had a happier life, no matter how short. Mommy did the best she could, which was nothing but the best for you!

You had everything, and i’m so glad I had even that little chance to spoil you.

Haylee . . . most of all, out of everybody else . . . mommy misses you.

Mommy loves you and cries for you every single day . . .

Mommy wishes you were here instead of there, but it’s ok baby girl, you don’t have to cry . . .

I do enough of that for the both of us.

I’ll be there later, I promise.

Just wait for me, find Grampa Charlie (Great Grampa Charlie to you, i guess), or great-great-grandma Bertha or Rhiannon, Debb told me she was a good babysitter . . .

Just someone you can trust to take care of you….

But find me when i come, i’ll be waiting for you.

Love You, Miss You, Think about you ALL THE TIME . . .

For Haylee

Love Mommy