Not What I Want to Remember

When I think of my sweet baby girl I want to remember her smile, her curls, the way she loved me and Mike so deeply.  I want to remember the little dance she did when we said "Hannah twirl".  I have so many things that I wish automatically came to my mind when I think of her but those aren't what I think of late at night or early mornings while I lay in bed.  All I can think of, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, is that morning, the morning we found her and she was already gone.

Mike and I woke up a little before 8:00 that morning and the first thing I said to him was "did you get up with her at all"?  Hannah slept through the night but 8:00 was late for her to be sleeping in until.   When I put her to bed the night before she had what I thought was a cold and was working on a tooth so I didn't think too much of her sleeping in, I just thought she was sleeping it off.  Never the less I got up and went in to her room to check in on her.  I opened the door and although that would usually cause her to stir, she laid there still.  I walked up to her crib and put my hand on her back and screamed.  It was then I knew she wasn't breathing.

I yelled for Mike and his scream I can still hear, a sound so full of both pain and anger.   Immediately Mike took our sweet girl and started CPR on her.  I called 911 and begged for them to come and save our baby, I didn't realize it but it was too late.

The ambulance arrived and I rode with Hannah to the hospital while Mike waited for my friend to come and stay with Allison (who thank God slept through the screams of her mom and dad and didn't witness any of this).  In the ambulance I think I knew, it finally had hit me that my sweet angel was going to heaven.

We got to the hospital and they did all they could to restart my baby's heart but it was too late.  There wasn't anything they could do, anything anyone could do, she was gone.  

The next couple hours we held Hannah in our arms while in denial of what had just happened and what was happening.  We took some hand and footprints, cut some of her beautiful curls, held her still hands, kissed her quiet face.  

In time I hope all my happy Hannah memories are what come to my mind first and not that morning I wish I could forget.