Our Story

Now that you've read 'About Emerson', you must ask what happened to our smart, funny, beautiful, healthy, loved little girl? That is a question we ask ourselves every single day. On March 1, 2010, at just 2 days shy of 28 months old, Emerson went in for her normal afternoon nap. We tucked her in with her special froggy blankie and her gicky (her name for her pacifier) just like every other day. As we kissed her little cheeks we had no idea that was the last time we would ever see Emmie alive. Just 2 hours later when we went to get her up, she was gone. Emerson passed away in her sleep. There was no warning and even today we have no cause.
 
We have all heard that life can change in a second. Our family knows that first hand and we are forced to live with that reality every single day. On the afternoon of Mach 1, 2010 we were joking in the kitchen, not knowing in the next second our world would end, we would never be the people we once were, our family would be irreparably broken. We went to bed that night profoundly different people then we were when we woke up that morning, for part of us died too, part of us will always be with our Emmie, and we will miss and love her every day for the rest of our lives.
 
We waited months for tests, for clues, for someone to tell us something that would make sense. Healthy children do not just die, not at Emerson's age. We have all heard of SIDS but Emerson was almost 2.5 years old. Unfortunately, what we found out is that doesn't make a child immune. SUDC, Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood, takes the life of approximately 1 in every 100,000 children over the age of 1. Like SIDS, it is a diagnosis of exclusion, it means "we don't know", we have ruled everything out and we still can not give you an answer as to why your healthy child died.
 
Losing a child is the most painful experience a person can go through; to not have answers compounds the grief and the fears for our other children. We worry it could be something genetic, something that could take another child from us. We continue to seek answers and always will, but we also have to live with the fact that they may never come. We are so thankful for the SUDC program. They have provided us support and resources no one else could. I do not know where we would be without the guidance they continue to provide. Through this program we have met many other parents that have experienced a similiar loss, have been given recommendations for sibling testing and have been provided a support system we could not get anywhere else. 
  
Lastly, if I could give friends and family one bit of advice it would be to speak her name, share a story, include her. Emerson is still our daughter, she is still our other children's sister, we still love her, we still want to tell people about her, same as any parent does with their living children. Emerson dying doesn't negate all the stories we have about her, all the times we shared, she lived and she was amazing, she will always be included in our family. Emerson gave us the happiest 2 years, 3 months and 25 days of our lives. 
 
For our part, we will continue to parent Emerson through sharing our memories and managing her foundation in a way that will spread the magic that Emerson exuded everwhere she went. Our hope is that in keeping her memory alive she will feel just a little bit closer to us, we miss her more than words can ever convey.
 
 Emmie, we love you soooo much.