I still see your dark curly hair, pearly white face, and reddish pink lips made pinker by the fever that was in you, that I didn't know you had, as I cradled you in my arms. I held you with such awe that a magnificent creation like you could come out of my body in such perfect form. Handed to me in trusting innocence. One to take care of for the rest of my life. Perfect pink toes and fingers, fingers that you curled around my little finger. Beautiful rounded head. Sweet smelling virgin skin. There never is such a feeling again when a mother holds this miraculuous gift for the first time. Each time you are held again the warmth and tenderness grows even more.

I had you for too short a time and was totally in love with you. I know you felt that as I carefully bathed you and dressed you in those cute footed pajamas. I worried about why you didn't want to wake up to eat and had to rouse you but being a new mother I didn't know. There really wasn't any sign there was something wrong that hot July and into August until one night the weather finally cooled down. You were still hot to the touch and mucuous tinged with pink was dribbling out your nose. The doctor was called even though it was midnight and we were told to bring you in to the office in the morning. He didn't sound concerned so I wasn't either. You suckled listlessly but that was understandable now that we knew you weren't feeling well.

As soon as we got to the doctor's office and you were looked at, tension grew. We were instructed to take you to the hospital ER right away. Once I heard that, I just knew. Knew that you were going away from me. As I waited in the examining room, I held you swaddled in your flannel blanket close to me savoring those last few moments sensing that you were slipping away. You didn't make a sound as we waited. I wouldn't let anyone else hold you. I had to have you in my arms until I couldn't have you anymore.

Then, a nurse came in and said that they were admitting you to the hospital. My heart went stone cold. From that moment, on my brain shifted into a dazed mode. She took you from me and laid you on the table to put a urine bag over your genitals and in that instant I knew I wasn't ever going to be taking you home again. And I was right. Four days later, water filled your lungs as you gave up fighting the pneumonia that had taken hold of you. I hate being right.

There was a funeral two days later. A baby's funeral is the saddest kind to have to go to. I hadn't cried. Everyone kept looking at me thinking they would see me crying but I didn't cry. There were several comments about "how brave you are" and "how well you are holding up." I wasn't brave. I was dying inside. I was in shock. There wasn't anything else that I could do to save her. My chance had passed. There was nothing left to do but let life ebb and bob around me. Instinctively, I felt that it was better that I didn't cry at the funeral. That it would be easier on everyone else if I didn't. My mother-in-law voiced the same thought later. I could have cried if I wanted to but I didn't want to. Not there.

When it was over, when the brief ceremony at the grave side had been done and I was handed the pink streamer with your name--Lynne Marie--glittered on it, and I knew that the next step for you was to be lowered into that dark and cold ground, as I turned to walk back to the car to go home, then...that's when...the first of the tears let loose. Cold, silent tears. And I felt wobbly. Just a bit. With my head bent and with the help of my husband, I found my way back to the car and gratefully went home. Grateful that it was just all over. That this horrible part was done and I could just go back to my wonderful memories of you in my head. Living memories. But with those living memories came lots more tears over the next few days and weeks, and years.

My sister-in-law Norma was visiting us a few days later. I had just one more unbearable task to complete. Taking your clothes out of the dresser and boxing them up. Seemingly unfeeling, I sat there and folded and stored. With Norma sitting on the bed beside me watching, I couldn't give into the misery I would have given into if she hadn't been there. She said, "That's something that I couldn't do."

"What?" I asked.

"Sit there and fold up her clothes. I wouldn't be able to do it. Someone else would have to do it."

"No, I have to do. I couldn't stand having anyone else do it. It's the last moment of being with her again," I replied calmly.

But it really wasn't. I kept those clothes for many years, taking them out carefully, and smelling their baby freshness. Drinking in her essence and aura. After nine years, though, the aura was dissipating. Her clothes must have known something. I was pregnant again and expecting delivery in July again. This was my fifth child. I had had three boys after Lynne. Pregnant again, I was certain that it would be just another boy. Oh, yeh, JUST another boy. The boys had healed me. It had been hard to walk through the girl's clothes in the stores to get to the boy's clothes. At first, I used to stop and finger the little lacy collars on the pink and purple dresses. And tears would fall quietly on my blouse. Then I'd resignedly move over to the plaids and stripes for the boys. But that difficulty had been fading.

On July 10, I was given the gift of another baby girl. I had been so certain that it would be another boy, so certain that I couldn't ever conceive another baby girl. When I woke up from the gas they had given me at the last moment, I heard the nurses telling me, "Mrs. Landenberger, you have a baby girl." I thought I was in a dream and hearing that song called "One Fine Day" in my head. After fully awakening, I still couldn't believe my ears. Quickly, I pulled the receiving blankets off my new baby to look at the genitals to be certain that I had heard right. Yes, there was the proof. No wobbly bits. Yet I still could hardly believe it. When they wheeled me out to see my husband in the hallway (that was still in the days when husbands weren't routinely let into the delivery rooms), I pulled the blankets off her again to show him that the doctors and nurses weren't lying. The nurses were a little puzzled and just as quickly covered her back up.

The day after Amy Lorraine was born and I felt more rested I asked the nurse to pull all the curtains around me. In those days, women always shared a room with another woman who had just given birth, too. With the curtains around us, I felt we were in our own little world and I poured my heart out to Amy. I had another beautiful little girl to hold. I told her all about you. And I thanked the Universe that I had been given another chance to raise a girl. I felt like I had come full circle. Even though I had successfullly been raising boys, I felt like I had been given a second chance to prove that I could raise a girl.

Thank you, Lynne, for being in my life, even though I have been filled with a sadness I didn't know existed because of your death. I must admit that I really don't understand why you didn't get to stay around. I wonder from time to time what you would look like now, what you would be doing with your life, what you would be like. Naturally, you will never be forgotten. You have always been a part of this family even though you've only been parked there in a little space of my heart.