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Thursday, March 01, 2007
THE WHOLE STORY ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO MELODY! (SHE SOARS!!!!)
Current mood: drained
Category: Blogging
As most of you know, Sonny and I lost our sweet Melody Starr on February 9, 2007. We are completely shattered. I would like to share the whole story about what happened for those who are interested. So here it is.
Friday February 9, 2007 was a very typical day for us starting out. I played with my daughters Alanna (6 mos at this time) and Melody (who is now forever 1 year 6 months and 17 days old) during the day. That afternoon I drove the usual 15 minutes or so with the girls to meet my ex-husband's wife to pick up my two boys Jarred (11 yrs) and Landon (3 yrs). We drove back toward home, I stopped off at Dollar General to let the boys pick out a toy and then we came home. My fiance, Sonny, and his little boy (Jake, 6 at this time) showed up a bit later. We all ate dinner. Then it was bath time. I took Landon and Melody into the bathroom and started it up for them. Alanna, Jake and Jarred were in the living room each doing their own thing. I washed both Landon and Melody and Landon asked if they could have bubbles. I told him 'yes' and he wanted to pour the bubbles in so I opened them for him and let him do that. Then I turned on the jets long enough for them to bubble up the bubbles and turned them off. I sat with them for a few minutes watching them play etc and my fiance came in. At this point the baby (Alanna) started crying so I told Sonny "I'll be back in a few, gonna go check on Alanna'. He said ok and I walked into the living room. Jarred was at the computer, Jake was watching TV and Alanna was lying in the floor swatting up at the toys on her play gym. She wanted her bottle so I fed her and went into the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher. I was finishing up when I heard Sonny say "mommy?" so I said 'yes' and he replied "Landon wants you" to which I said "give me just a sec." I put a detergent tab in the dishwasher, closed and started it and then threw the detergent tab bag away cuz I had used the last one. I walked thru the living room into the hallway and almost collided with Sonny coming out of the boys' bedroom with empty boxes he was going to take to the barn. He let me go on thru and I continued into the bathroom. Landon was there standing up but Melody was nowhere to be seen so I said "Landon where is Sissy?" (And even tho the smart part of my brain knew that Sonny hadn't gotten Melody out I thought he might have since I didn't see her) Landon replied with 'right there' and point to his left at the bubbles/water and I just knew in my mommy heart in THAT very moment that my girl was gone. I couldn't see her because of the bubbles so I just reached my arms in and scooped her up into my arms. She was pale, blue around the lips, limp and lifeless. I laid her on the mat in front of the tub, ran into the hallway by the bathroom door and was SCREAMING..."OMG SONNY PLEASE COME HERE NOW!!!" and other stuff I don't remember. I do recall that he was there in an instant and screaming back at me 'WHAT'S WRONG WHAT IS IT" and I said "OMG IT'S MELODY!!!" He screamed at me to call 911 but I already had my cell phone (no land line) and was heading out the front door with it (because of some signal issues in the house...didn't want to possibly get disconnected). I sent my oldest boy, Jarred, to Sonny's dad's house next door. He was met at the door there by one of Sonny's brother's g/f, Alicia, who came running up here and started performing CPR immediately (Melody and Alanna were both preemies so I had taken CPR TWICE in the last 18 months and it seemed to completely escape my mind and fail me when I got Melody out of the bath). I went between calm and cool and hysterical with the with the 911 operator. She wanted to know if someone was performing CPR and I didn't know cuz I was outside so I walked back into the front door and thru the house, looked into the bathroom and saw Alicia doing the CPR and went out the back door. I remember telling the operator I can hear them but I don't see their lights WHERE ARE THEY?!?! And of course she was trying to keep me calm but that wasn't working much. Then I recall telling her 'THEY ARE GETTING CLOSER I HEAR THEM REAL LOUD AND I CAN SEE THEIR LIGHTS!!!!" SO I ran down close to the road and just started jumping up and down waving and screaming "HERE PLEASE WE NEED YOU HERE WE ARE HERE!!!" SO they saw me and got into the driveway and jumped out of vehicles and started running into the house. There was tons of people in the bathroom and in the hallway outside the bathroom (medical personnel). After a few minutes in there with her, Alicia and Sonny they carried Melody out and into the ambulance. They worked on her in the back of the ambulance for about 15 minutes, intubating her and IV lines in both arms etc. Sonny and I just stood outside the ambulance doors crying, praying and holding each other. OF course since she was a child they had to investigate the incident thoroughly so we were not allowed to go to the hospital at that point. I asked where they were taking her. They said Morristown-Hamblen. Even though my mommy heart already knew she was gone it was confirmed when they told me that because if there had been a fighting chance for her they would have had her flown about 30 (car) minutes away to the Children's Hospital in Knoxville. So we waited. No one was allowed to use the bathroom here....or go in there period of course. We had to answer lots of questions for the police. We were waiting on a darn investigator that was being really very slow. Melody was the first girl in both mine and Sonny's families in 20 or more years so she was totally spoiled. She would go spend every other weekend with my aunt and uncle (Rita & Randy) or my adult cousin and her husband (Tabby & Greg) in Johnson City (about 1 hr 15 minutes away). Well as soon as the ambulance left with Melody I called Tabby and I blurted "OMG Tabby I think she is dead!!!" And of course she wanted to know who and what and where they were taking her. So she and Greg started down this way and THEY made it to the hospital (that is only 15 minutes from where we live) before we ever did even tho the hospital is 1 hr and 15 minutes from them! That is how long it took for the police to decide to let us go to the hospital and the only reason they did at that point was because Tabby had a paper signed by me and notarized saying that she could get care and information about Melody and sign for her treatment and such because Tabby loved to take Melody over to Asheville, NC to shop in the Mall over there, so when she got to the hospital they told her and Greg so Greg called me. I said "Is she gone?" Of course Greg said that they told him he could NOT tell me anything other than it wasn't good and that surely I could hear from the sound and shaking of his voice that it was REALLY BAD! I said "IS SHE GONE? YES OR NO?!?!" He said "Yes" and I dropped the phone and just screamed "NO, NOT MY GIRL!!!" Everyone was standing or sitting around me cuz I was on the living room couch. Alicia fell to the kitchen floor crying and Sonny fell to the LR floor crying. He was in bad shape so I calmed myself down and was walking to him to try to calm him down. I passed by a cop who said to me "Who called and told you? It was someone from the hospital?" I just looked him dead in the eyes and said "It doesn't matter" cuz Sonny & I deserved to know and the damn cops weren't telling us a fucking thing! So they let us go to the hospital. The head nurse and a member of clergy with the police dept came and talked with us in the prayer room at the hospital then we were allowed to go back to a room and see her. We couldn't touch her because they were sending her to Knoxville for an autopsy but we did get to see her. And we were surrounded by cops of course to make sure we didn't touch her or anything. Tabby, Sonny and I stood there hugging crying and praying. The investigator asked us to come the following Monday at 10 am to make our formal statements since he didn't get to get them that night. The forensics place called the next morning to say the autopsy was done (WOW REALLY FAST, we weren't expecting her body to be released until Monday) so we told them a funeral home and we went thru the motions of burying her. Tabby insisted on a pink casket that she had to pay an extra $1000 for to have flown in overnight but if she wanted to pay that it was her choice because she was like a second mommy to Melody. It's been 19 days since we lost Our Daughter, Our Star, Our Melody Starr Alexander and we are all just sorta 'here'. Melody was our miracle baby. She was so wanted (as I already had two boys and he had a boy). We had two miscarriages before we got pg with and she was born 6 wks early (my boys were term) in an ambulance and fought hard for 2 weeks in the NICU. She was the only child that Sonny and I had together (as he and I split up for a while and I had my youngest daughter with someone else before Sonny and I got back together). SO I was supposed to be having my tubes tied on Feb 23 but I called and canceled the surgery because it's possible that he and I could want to have another child together since the one we had is no longer living. We have the 3 boys in therapy already (since Jake and Jarred are old enough to 'understand' and Landon because he was in the bath with her when it happened and as she was being given CPR).
If you made it thru all of this, THANK YOU for caring enough to take the time to read it. We appreciate all of you who have been there and supported us thru this!
Crystal
As for the album it says I am listening to...it's a specific song on this album called "Who You'd Be Today" FOR MY GIRL THAT SOARS!!!
Currently listening :
The Road and the Radio
By Kenny Chesney
Release date: 08 November, 2005
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