Baby Zane and "alive magics"

by Christine Allen-Riley
8th May 1998

My beautiful nephew, Zane Garret Allen, was born 30 June 1997 and died 4 March 1998. We were blessed to have him with us, but his death has devastated our entire family. I want to extend my deepest, most heartfelt sympathies to all who are touched by the cruelty of SIDS. The hole that Zane's loss has left in my heart will never be filled, and I know that it is likely that we will never know the answers to all of the "whys." My three year old son summed it up best on the way home from Zane's funeral, he said "I'm sad 'bout Baby Zane. I wan help him feel bettoalive, but I don't has no reasons, and I don't has no magics...I don't has no alive magics." I wish for the impossible...I wish for enough reasons and magics for all of us.

I'd like to share the poem that I wrote for Zane. I guess it helps me to feel like I'm sharing him a little...

Zane's Song

There are no words
to write a child -
they only exist
in the language of the soul

You came to us
with laughing eyes,
and your life
a bright field of baby's breath

Your sweet, sleepy smiles
and the weight and warmth
of your body
cradled
in our arms,
as the trees sang
your laughter and your name

We carry our memories
like snapshots -
images tattered and blurred
by tears

Clutching
these reflections of your spirit
we hold to you

Listening to the trees

Christine Allen-Riley copyright 6 March 1998

This is the poem I wrote in hours after learning of Zane's death.

Sleep

He never sleeps
with covers on his body
flopping
like a gasping fish

I watch him
sleep, thinking
of that other small body,
who neither dreams nor
sleeps

Laying alone
lifeless
in a bag or maybe
a drawer

And all I can think to do
is pull the blankets
up, over his restless,
dreaming
form

Christine Allen-Riley copyright 4 March 1998

Thank you for having this space. In some way it helps. Not to know that others are suffering too, but that there is a place of understanding. I understand the meaning of the word heartsick now. I grieve for Zane and my brother and sister-in-law, and also for you and your babies. I hope that somehow, someday we all might find a measure of peace.