I read this poem out at Michelle's funeral, from the serviettes it was written on

This poem was written the day after Michelle died, in McDonalds on a serviette.  I looked at my two girls on a rocking thing, and momentarily saw Michelle in between them both.  I grabbed a serviette and wrote this poem immediately.  Chris had taken a huge pile of serviettes upstairs, automatically, forgetting we didn't have Michelle anymore to need them.

The Night Michelle Died

The night she died, a lot of people were around, mainly our extended "family" of girls who had helped me with Michelle over time.  I had a bad back from lifting Michelle, but suddenly I didn't care anymore, and picked her up and danced around the room with her, singing a song I sang to her in the hospital (when we transferred there from  home not long after she was born, and couldn't feed).  Suddenly, as I was singing my voice changed and reverberated around the room and everyone spontaneously got up and  joined hands in a circle around me.  I felt a tremendous force come through me, not unlike the birth force.  I truly thought she was going to die then...but she didn't.

Everyone went home about 11pm and we all went to bed in one room.  The baby was asleep in the portable cot and the other four of us were in the king size bed.  Michelle was Cheyne-Stoking (raspy breathing that kept stopping and starting again, which she'd been doing all day) so it was hopeless having her lying down.  Chris and I sat up in bed, taking turns holding her.  I begged God to come and take her,  I asked Michelle to fly away like a butterfly - anything, to put an end to hers and our misery.  At 3am I got out of bed to get a straight brandy each for Chris and me. When I came back he showed me how she had put her hand up to his chest.  That deeply touched us both.

The brandy relaxed us, and therefore her.  I said "Go to the angels" and instantly her breathing changed to a pattern similar to the breathing I did in labour and she died peacefully, within a few minutes in my arms at 3.20 a.m.

I let her go...the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

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A summary, with photos of Michelle's entire life
(please be warned two photos on that page were taken after she died)

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More Poems about when Michelle was dying

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