Baby Holly

(Photo In Memory of Holly McNamara)

Holly Maree McNamara, was born on the 20th August, 1988 at the Dandenong Valley Private Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Holly died on the 18th of January, 1989. She died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (S.I.D.S). Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is also known as cot death. She was five-months-old. She was beautiful.

SIDS is described as being: ‘Sudden death of any infant or child which is unexpected by history and in which a thorough post-mortem examination fails to demonstrate an adequate cause of death’.

This description was made at the 2nd International Conference on Causes of SIDS held at Seattle, in the USA, in 1969.

My own description of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is this: ‘My beautiful five month old daughter Holly stopped breathing and died for reasons unknown to any living human being. The pain of losing a child was now with me.’

On Sunday 15th January, 1989, I was rostered on for a week of night shifts at the Cranbourne police station. Members rostered to work night shift would commence on the Sunday night and work seven nights straight. Duty would commence at 11p.m and finish at 7a.m the next morning unless of course you were forced to work overtime due to some incident occurring during your shift.

My sergeant on the night shift had three children and we enjoyed each other’s company and always had some fun on shift together.

I remember on the Tuesday night of that week sitting down with him and talking about Holly. I was telling him how beautiful she was; what a great baby she was; how she had never been sick and how I was so rapt to be a dad and have someone as wonderful as her for a daughter. I couldn’t wait to get home to see her. I was so at peace with the world.

I knew that the first five months was the critical time for cot death and had totally accepted in my own heart that Holly was through that barrier. It had been almost five months to the day she was born and I had let my defences down completely. I had relaxed and had total belief that Holly was not going to die from cot death. This was the very night I realized what great joy it was to be a father and couldn’t wait to see her that Wednesday morning.

It had been a very uneventful Tuesday night on shift. Crime had taken the night off. The only thing that got the blood pumping was a couple of calls saying that a bus full of tourists had crashed in Kooweerup. Turned out they were prank calls. Thank God. As 7am ticked over the morning shift arrived and I bade the guys farewell.

It was only a short drive to our home in Cranbourne. I recall it being a fairly warm morning. Slightly overcast as I pulled into the driveway.

I would always head straight for Holly’s room in the morning to see her before going to bed. Some people need to stay awake for a while after a night shift. Have some breakfast. Maybe even stay up till lunch time. But when I was on nightshift I couldn’t wait to get to bed.

I would go to the toilet, clean my teeth then jump under the covers. In two minutes I would be fast asleep.

I crept into Holly’s room on the morning of Wednesday, January 18th, 1989, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep. But in my mind hoping that she would already be awake or that my presence would wake her so I could see those beautiful big blue eyes staring at me and that beautiful mouth with the biggest smile beaming at me.

I was not disappointed as I poked my head into her room. She was lying there wide awake and as she noticed me the most beautiful smile I had ever seen lit up her face and her eyes looked into mine with that look and feeling that only a father and daughter can experience and feel.

At that very moment I knew what love was. It was there in that room. Time stood still. There was no time. I was living and experiencing the present moment like never before. I had no idea that this would be the last time that I would see Holly alive. It was as if she was giving me a lifetime of love in that one moment. I leaned into her cot and gave her a kiss. I stroked her forehead and whispered into her ear “Goodnight Hol. I love you beautiful girl.”

We all have memorable moments in our lives but without doubt the memory of that morning will live with me forever. Nothing I have experienced before or since comes close to the love and joy I experienced with Holly at that moment. I will never forget it. We were together as one. We still are.

It was around 11a.m that I heard the bedroom window being pounded on and a voice calling my name. I remember waking with a jolt and wondering what the hell was going on. I actually felt quite annoyed at being woken. It took a while to come to my senses but after a few seconds I realised it was my mother-in law. She was yelling out “Kevin, Kevin, quick it’s Holly. She is at the doctor’s and there is something wrong with her breathing.”

I jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed. I remember putting on a pair of blue tracksuit pants and a blue and white sweater, with the words ‘San Francisco’ written on the front that I had bought over in America fifteen months earlier. It is amazing the things we remember at critical times in our lives. The things that stick in our minds. I went to the front door and my mother-in-law repeated her earlier warning. She looked very upset and worried. I kept reassuring her that Holly would be fine. She drove me to the doctor’s surgery that was about one kilometre away from where we lived.

I remember on the way constantly reassuring her that there was nothing to worry about and that Holly would be awake and laughing when we arrived. I honestly believed that I would arrive at the surgery and the doctor would say that everything is fine and she was just a bit off colour. I vividly recall when I was being driven to the surgery that in my head I had total confidence that Holly would be crawling around the floor of the surgery and would look up at me with those beautiful eyes of hers and smile. I was actually looking forward to seeing her.

When we arrived I was ushered immediately from the waiting room and into a medical room. I was met by our family doctor. I noticed there were four ambulance officers also in the room who were gathered around a bed that was directly behind the doctor. His first words to me were “I am sorry. We tried everything.”

At this moment in time I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. I said to him, “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” My mind was just numb. He said again, “I am sorry. We tried everything.” I was still confused. I had been in a deep sleep only to be woken and driven down to the doctor’s surgery. Nothing was making sense. I then looked over at the ambulance officers standing around the bed. The pain of losing a child had hit them hard. All four had tears in their eyes. I then noticed the small child lying on the bed.

It was Holly.


♥


The doctor asked me if I would like to hold her and passed her to me. I held her tight and looked at her beautiful face. She seemed so content as though she was sleeping peacefully. It did not register then that she had died and it would not register for some time. My body had shut down emotionally and I was numb.

My wife had been at the hairdresser that morning and her mum had been looking after Holly. She arrived at the surgery a short time later. When she walked in she was understandably distressed and crying, in shock and very emotional. She was asking me questions but I had no answers. We both just kept looking at this beautiful child who had just died.

I had entered a vacuum. No feeling, no emotion, no tears, no pain. Nothingness.


The pain of losing a child had just begun.



- Kevin McNamara - www.motherswhohavelostachild.com