I just heard about your horrible experience with your daughter. I feel so sad for you and my heart hurts too. When I heard what happened, I just felt it necessary to share my story, so that maybe in some way, you won't feel so all alone.

My third child was a little boy by the name of Alex. He was only 4 months old when he died. I am in the medical field and am around doctors and medicine all day long. Why didn't I see that he was sick? Why did I go to work that day. My son had meningitis and got sick and died within 24 hours. I felt his body and his soul leave me while I was holding him on the way to the emergency room in the car. What ever anybody said to me was not comforting in any way. They didn't know what it was like to lose a child. NO one could even fathom an ounce of the pain in my heart. I just wanted to die. I couldn't feel, I couldn't eat, I couldn't talk. I felt like I was in a dream and I wanted to wake up but I couldn't. People said some very weird things to me like: "Oh, you're still young, you could have another baby." My response to that was: "my baby was not a dog you can replace after it dies." Any way, the point I'm trying to make, is that people don't know what to say to you because they cannot relate. So try to understand that they mean well.

After Alex died, I could not accept the fact that he was just going to lay in the ground cold, my little sweet baby. I heard him crying in the night for me many times after that. Maybe it was his way of letting me know he was ok. I started doing some volunteer work with other people who were going through similar loss issues and that did seem to help me a little. To know I was not the only one in the world who felt this way.

Two years later, I had a little girl and her name was Nicole. She was my little angel and my only daughter. I felt like she was a gift to me. My only daughter that I would have never had if Alex hadn't died. Only to lose her also.

When she was 14 months old, my husband made her a sandbox and came in the house to see if she would like it. He took her outside and I stayed inside. 5 minutes later I heard my husband screaming. I ran out to look and there was my daughter lying in the driveway lifeless. He had decided to move the car to cut the grass and she ran to him wanting to go with him and he didn't know she was behind the car. I picked her up and screamed, get in the car. We were driving 100 miles an hour to get to the hospital and our car motor blew up. I ran out into the middle of the highway holding her and stood in front of an oncomining car. He stopped and I jumped in and had this complete stranger take me to the emergency room. I waited outside wondering and praying that my daughter was going to be alright.

They were going to medivac her to the nearest big hospital and the chopper was on it's way when a big storm broke out and they had to turn back. I knew then that there was no hope. My little angel sent from God to take away my pain from Alex, was gone too.

I flew home to California after the funeral and I was in isolation for over 6 months. I couldn't watch TV because there were baby commercials. I couldn't go to the store because there were babies in the shopping carts. I couldn't do anything. I just layed in bed. I hated my husband so much. He killed my daughter. I could not even look at his face. How could he be so careless. They finally took me to the doctors and put me on medication. That at least got me to function a little, even though I didn't care to. I had to somehow get it together for my older boys. If it wasn't for my boys, they probably would've had to commit me. I didn't go back to work for a long, long time. I don't even know. My sister said that I just sat outside at the pool every day for months just staring into space. I truly don't remember that.

It's been 10 years since my daughter died and I am still here. A survivor I guess. I got divorced and remarried. I now have 3 sons living 21, 17 and 4. For me to have another child after everything I went through took a lot of courage and counseling. I have done a lot of soul searching and I still don't really know what good came out of my losses except my commitment to taking care of myself no matter what. I still don't have the answer to why me? Why couldn't it have happened to someone next door. I didn't deserve this. People said to me a lot, that the pain will go away eventually. I am here to say, that for me, the pain never goes away. . . I just learned how to live with it.

I hope this letter will come to you with some kind of comfort to know that you are not alone in this. Even though I don't know you, in a strange way I feel like I do.