Journal: Entry for Hieshyn

My daughter Harper passed away on Saturday night. She was only 4 1/2 months old. The autopsy will be done tomorrow but the cause of death seems to be suffocation due to choking on her vomit in her sleep. God I hope she was asleep. I was home alone with her, I had put her to bed waiting for her mother to get off of work. She had been so happy and playful all day, she wasn't ready for bed but it was her bedtime. She was fussy but that wasn't out of the ordinary, she cried for maybe 10 minutes and settled down. Always went down like that, I had no idea if anything was wrong. I was in the living room playing games, just doing my usual nightly tasks. My girlfriend forgot her keys in the diaper bag, which I had so I had to run the keys to her after work and as I went to get the baby ready I walked through the door I was saying "Let's go see Mommy!" I saw she had pulled the blanket over her face with only her forhead showing, immidiatley I saw her color and knew something was wrong. I will spare everyone the details of what happened next, I will forever be haunted by it. I feel so broken, my heart and soul shattered in that moment. Everytime I close my eyes I see her and relive the trauma of the events between finding her and getting her in the hands of the EMTs.

I have been surrounded by the love and support of my family and friends, both mine and my girlfriends families dropped everything in the middle of the night and drove the four hours to get to us and be there for us. It has helped tremendously and I am so grateful for what they have done and are continuing to do in our time of need. I just cannot believe this is my life. I was so worried for her future and trying to shield her from any pain she would encounter as she lived her life, grew older, loved and lived. I never once thought her life could have ended the way it did. No parent wants to bury their child.

Throughout this experience everyone has been telling me not to take on the burden of her death, that it wasn't my fault, I couldn't have done any better than I did. I just cannot bring myself to believe that. I was 20 feet away. I was in the other room. I should have felt it, I should have known she needed me. I failed to protect her and I will forever live knowing that.

The only solace in this that I take is knowing that I was the one to find her. Our normal routine has me put Harper to bed and when her mom gets home she goes and wakes her up to breastfeed. Because I had to get Summer her keys things didn't play out as they would have. I cannot imagine how she would have felt finding her daughter that way, even though I had to experience exactly that. I took that bullet for her and even though it has in every way ruined me, I was able to spare my love that fate.

I don't know what life will bring next, I am taking it a day, an hour, sometimes needing to go down to the minute, at a time. Her funeral is going to be on Thursday at 2. My life has forever changed, and it will not be better. It will always have an enormous hole right in the middle. Summer and I truly love each other and it will be our love and dedication to each other that will pull us though this. I know myself to be extremely lucky to have found such a woman and to have made her mine. Her strength is incredible and though she lets her guard down with me in private, it has been her strength in public and her patience with me and my blubbering that gives me hope and strength to carry on.

Harper Moiraine Grandstrand Hart was born on June 14th 2018. She was the love of my life, my little pooperdoodle. My chuncker. I miss her so much, I will always love and cherish each second I had with her. If I could I would trade my life for hers, I have experienced so much, lived life, hers had barely begun. Even so the outpouring of love and support from friends and family has shown me that her short life affected so many people and she was loved by a huge community and she will be so greatly missed.

I love you baby.

Daddy.