Samantha Renee Pittock ~ March 10, 2011 to July 10, 2011

Sammy got to spend a month at home with her parents under hospice care before she died at exactly four months old. She got a whole extra month of love and cuddles and time with her family and friends. Those who loved her are grieving for her at the same time they are rejoicing that she is free of pain now and knows only love.

I never met her but I am grieving too. My heart breaks for her parents Stephanie and Travis, who lost their second child today. I cannot imagine.

Read about Sammy’s life at her CaringBridge page. She has a Flickr photostream, too, where Stephanie put all the snapshots they’d taken of Sammy in her brief life as well as the photos from a professional portrait session with a Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep photographer.

Thank you to those of you who kept Samantha and her family in your thoughts and prayers, and especially to those of you who went out of your way to let me know you were doing so. I’ve closed comments on this post, but if you want to express your sympathies to Stephanie and Travis, please do so by signing the guestbook at the CaringBridge page or leave a comment on Stephanie’s blog.

Day 4 was one of those frustrating, losing-my-temper days. Nothing was seriously wrong (not with our family, anyway). We’re all healthy, no one’s getting divorced or fired. It’s just…all the big and small annoying/sad/worrisome things adding up. It was life, kicking my butt, like it does once in a while.

That night Troy and I had a good long talk about some of life’s current challenges and ways we could tackle them. The next morning, we had the house professionally cleaned for the second time in our lives, which was just as awesome as the first time. And then the day after that, my mom arrived for a short visit. Blue skies ahead.

Annalie said:

At first, I saw this fox in the street and I wasn’t sure if he was a cat or a fox. But then my mom came in the room and told me that it was a fox, and she was right. We looked it up online. You wanna know why I thought it was a cat? Well, you see, its tail wasn’t that POOFY, so I thought it was a cat. But we think maybe he was just wet, because it rained this morning.

Remember my friend Stephanie‘s little girl Samantha who was sick with meningits, the one I crocheted the blanket for? Well, the latest news is not good, which is an understatement.

The infection ate away most of Samantha’s brain tissue before it was under control. About a week ago they met with all their doctors and specialists to go over what was in store for them. They decided it was time to take Sammy home, to just enjoy their daughter as much as they could, and let as many of their friends and family meet her and hold her as possible. They have hospice nurses helping them out at home, and they are administering medications to keep Sammy as comfortable as possible during these final days.

These past weeks I’ve spent a lot of time thinking of and praying for my friends and their sweet baby girl, whom I will likely never get to meet this side of heaven. I’ve thought about how excited I was for Stephanie and Travis to watch their daughter grow up, how I thought it was cool she was born a day after my birthday, how fun it would be that our babies were close in age and how when we visited them this fall on our way to see Troy’s parents it would be neat to introduce our girls to each other. I think about all those things with grief now, and I know that my grief is so very tiny compared to theirs.

I remember how scary it was when Elliora was first admitted to the hospital last December, before we knew it was RSV and they were doing every test under the sun, including a lumbar puncture to check for meningitis. Sometimes when I’m thinking about Samantha I look down at Elliora as she nurses or sleeps on me, and know it could have just as easily happened to her. There but for the grace of God, I think, and breathe a prayer of thanks at the same time I am crying for my friends.

Loss is a fact of life. I know way too many people who’ve lost babies, and they’re all awful, tragic losses. This one is hitting me harder than most for some reason. Maybe because of Elliora’s time in the hospital and my own brief, terrifying glimpse of what it would be like to stand at the edge of that chasm of pain and grief. I think this is part of why I’ve been having such a hard time blogging lately, actually.

I’m so thankful that Travis and Stephanie are people of deep faith. I’m grateful that they’re being supported by so many loved ones and comforted by the many, many people praying for them. And I’m so glad I sent the blanket when I did. I won’t get to hug Samantha or hold her but something I created has kept her warm and brightened her bed.

If you want to read more about Samantha or leave a message for her parents, you can go here, to Samantha Pittock’s CaringBridge.