It's the memories, the good, bad and sometimes ominous, that continue to scroll through Shelly Goodwin's mind a year after the death of her two-year-old daughter.

"It's funny the things that come back to you," Goodwin says, shifting her penetrating gaze aside for a moment. "We were on our way to a San Antonio Missions game. It was the first time D'Lauren noticed her shadow on the car window. She pointed at it and said 'look, my angel is following me.' It makes you wonder."

Around three weeks later, on Memorial Day 2000, D'Lauren Goodwin climbed into the backseat of her parents' parked station wagon at their rural Guadalupe County home and closed the doors, setting off a snapping of automatic locks.

She was pronounced dead of heat related causes in Seguin several hours later.

It was the worst imaginable ending to a chaotic evening in which Shelly herself was taken to the New Braunfels hospital at around 6 p.m. for an ongoing stomach illness.

The ensuing mayhem left her 14-year-old son Dustin in charge of D'Lauren and 6-year old brother Dakota, while Shelly and husband Paul set off to the emergency room.

At around 6:30 p.m., Shelly says Dustin and Dakota were finishing their chores in the backyard while D'Lauren played in the sandbox. Dustin turned his back for a minute and D'Lauren was gone.

The brothers, cued by a dome light in the station wagon, would find their sister later that evening, curled in a blanket, as if sleeping, in the backseat. She never regained consciousness.

While the loss is impossible to calculate, and the psychological scars will never completely heal, Shelly wants to use the tragedy as an example and to raise awareness about the dangers of unlocked cars to children.

"We live way out in the country, we have an above ground pool, we thought we were safe," Shelly says, "and usually I still lock the car, but I wasn't feeling well when I got home, but it's so important, because even with the windows cracked, the sheriff's deputies said it wouldn't have helped."

Subsequent testing by investigators showed the heat in the Goodwin's enclosed station wagon that time of day ranged from 103 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

At least 120 children across the country -- most under age three -- have died from heat stroke after being trapped inside parked cars from 1996 to 2000, according to a General Motors study and data released by the National Safe Kids Campaign.

Four Texas children under 18 officially died from heat related causes in 1999 -- the latest year such data is available -- with two of those dying because they were left in cars, according to the Texas Department of Health.

The inside temperature of a car will rise to 125 degrees Fahrenheit within 20 minutes, and to 140 degrees Fahrenheit within 40 minutes when the outside temperature is a mere 90 degrees, says Emily Palmer, a TDH spokesperson.

Because infants and young children's sweat glands are not fully developed, excessive heat posses increased risk, because the body can not cool itself adequately, Palmer says.

"You never know how any particular child is going to react," Palmer said. "The best thing to do is just don't do it. Never leave you child in a parked car for even a second. But what people often don't realize is other children can climb into any open vehicle, lock themselves in and can't get out."

Through her church and counseling, Shelly says her family has been able to bring a sort of closure to the untimely death of its smiling auburn-haired daughter and sister. The experience has also given her a mission of sorts and a better awareness of the seemingly small and fleeting moments of life.

"I feel like now I've become a kind of child advocate," Shelly says, "If there's one message I want people to get it's to lock your car doors." A young couple walks into the crowded restaurant and catches her attention for a moment and she follows them to their table, watches the father hoist his daughter into a high chair. She turns back. "Today if I see people yelling at their children in public over nothing, I really want to lash out because they may not be here tomorrow and they will regret it."