The cloudless blue sky and glowing sun on the day of Riál’s death was unusual for this region in mid-November. I was grateful that the darkness in my heart about out-living my infant daughter was contrasted by beauty of the sun shining all over the cemetery.
The day in September before Riál manifested symptoms of an illness that three days later would be diagnosed as a Citrobacter Freundii bacterial infection, I noticed that her hands were so very cold. She was swaddled, yet 
not warm. I sat on my bed beside the window and let the sun shine on her…warm her…and I talked to her about the beautiful blue hydrangea bush outside that window. We sat there a long time.
I hadn’t realized that day how significant the sun’s warmth and blue hydrangeas would be in my connection to my baby girl…
The kind gentleman at Oddfellows cemetery showed us some available burial plots. He suggested burying her near the statue of Jesus since we were Christian, but my heart didn’t like the location. “How about in Babyland?” He asked. I didn’t like that either…it was too wide open. He patiently walked with us as we surveyed the available plots. Thank goodness it was dry and sunny.
“Well, there’s one over there, under that Willow tree,” he said. My heart leaped. “That’s it!” I thought to myself without having seen it yet.
We walked to the enormous tree. The late afternoon sun was placed perfectly in the sky for me to know that was her spot, and 
why: the plot was under a Weeping Willow tree (how fitting), but the way the cemetery is oriented, that plot is always in the the sun as it traverses the sky from sunrise to sunset. It is never shaded by tree branches.
“She was always so cold,” I spoke to myself, flashing back to a day in October at Children’s Hospital when she returned to her room after a bone marrow biopsy procedure with a body temperature of 94.6. We kept heat lamps over her for four hours before her temperature returned to normal. We would later learn that rather than developing a fever from infection, she was hypothermic…she was too ill for her body to maintain a normal body temperature.
2-year-old Abe kissing baby sister goodbye...for now
The day of her funeral was stereotypically dreary and pouring down rain. I don’t think more rain fell than tears were shed that day.
~ ~ ~ ~
It snowed the next February…another uncommon event for the Puget Sound lowlands…and I wanted to go see how beautiful the cemetery looked under a blanket of white. I was stunned to see that the willow branches had kept snow from falling on Riál’s plot.
Rial's baby brother's shadow, May 2007
© 2008 Alexa Lopez
Growing Edges 
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