Published: May 07, 2008 12:50 am            

Lives over before they have begun

A baby is a gift, a joy, a challenge, a puzzle, a source of pride, a guarantee of sleepless nights.

Why, then, do babies have to die?

We got word Tuesday one of our great nieces had lost a baby.

She would have been named Maisey Lynn. She never made it out of the womb alive, apparently strangled by her own umbilical cord.

She was, by all accounts, a beautiful child, weighing more than six pounds.

A newborn represents the future, a life just begun. Parents cannot help but dream of what their wrinkled, red-faced little squalling bundle will grow up to become.

But when a baby dies, all those dreams evaporate.

She never will jolt her parents from their slumber with her cries in the wee hours of the morning, never giggle as her mother tickles her while giving her a bath.

She won’t bounce on her grandpa’s knee, won’t fall asleep in her grandmother’s arms.

She won’t learn to crawl, then walk, then run. She won’t fall in love with a ratty old blanket or a drool-soaked teddy bear and she will not refuse to go to bed without her favorite thing.

She won’t learn to cope with being a younger sister, won’t have to adjust to a baby-sitter or daycare. She won’t cry when her mother leaves her at the door on the first day of school.

She won’t get her first gold star for coloring within the lines, won’t learn to love nap time and snack time and all the other joys of kindergarten.

She won’t learn to count, won’t learn her ABCs, won’t learn her multiplication tables or to cope with the vagaries of long division and fractions.

She won’t learn to read, won’t study history, science, geography or social studies. She won’t progress from grade school, to junior high, to high school.

She won’t get pimples, won’t get her first crush, won’t have her first date, won’t get her first kiss.

She won’t graduate, won’t marry, won’t spend nine long months carrying a child of her own, only to have her dreams dashed by a tragic accident.

Of course she won’t feel pain, won’t know sorrow, won’t face loss, rejection, despair or any of the other emotional challenges life throws at you.

Babies are blameless, babies are sinless, save the stain of original sin all members of our species carry. This child wronged no one, offended no one, hurt no one.

Babies aren’t supposed to die. That should be left to the old, who have lived full lives, loved, raised families, had careers and have otherwise filled in the blanks life presents to us.

Babies die all the time, of course, it is not, sadly, a unique phenomenon. A 2006 report found an estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours worldwide.

Two million lives a year, over before they began, a truly depressing statistic.

The poet Carl Sandburg wrote “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” Is the death of a baby, then, an indication the Almighty is giving up on us?

We can only hope not, just as we also hope God maintains a special place in heaven for babies.

Goodbye Maisey, we never knew you but would undoubtedly have loved you.



Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle.