Baby Trail...Lives Touched by One Baby
By Angel Carter
NANN Footprints: Stories from the NICU April 2019
...I was imagining a line drawn along the path we took with this baby girl, this morning, and all the people along the path whom she touched - even after death...
…I wondered if they are "counted" when we talk about all the people affected by the death of a child...
…from the parent room, you could see the discarded wrappings of the new baby clothes they had opened for this "occasion" and then the baggies of the "infant post mortem body bag" and the extra toe tags and I wondered if the person who cleaned those up, later, would notice and be sad…
…to the elevator, even knowing it to be the staff elevator, getting on it with two laughing nurses seemingly on break from a floor that doesn't often have to deal with infant death, seeing their faces change when they notice the security guard, chaplain, and nurse cradling a blanket-wrapped bundle whose face is covered… to the morgue…
…where the security guard fills out the stickie note that is placed on the refrigerator door, as the baby is laid on a cold, metal tray and pushed into the refrigerator with the note that says, "no food or drink allowed"…
…and he goes to wait for the funeral home at the loading dock…
…all those people today saw this baby girl, took note of her death and appeared to "take it in"
…and then, i wonder…
…where they let it go...