An Angel Goes to Heaven

8/3/2019 An Angel Goes to Heaven

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Holly Maree McNamara, was born on the 20th August, 1988at the Dandenong Valley Private Hospital in Melbourne,Australia. Holly died on the 18th of January, 1989. She diedfrom Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (S.I.D.S). Sudden

Infant Death Syndrome is also known as cot death. She wasfive-months-old. She was beautiful.

SIDS is described as being: ‘Sudden death of any infant orchild which is unexpected by history and in which athorough post-mortem examination fails to demonstrate anadequate cause of death’.

This description was made at the 2nd InternationalConference on Causes of SIDS held at Seattle, in the USA,in 1969.

My own description of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome isthis: ‘My beautiful five month old daughter Holly stoppedbreathing and died for reasons unknown to any livinghuman being. The pain of losing a child was now with me.’

On Sunday 15th January, 1989, I was rostered on for a week of nightshifts at the Cranbourne police station. Members rostered to work night shift would commence on the Sunday night and work sevennights straight. Duty would commence at 11p.m and finish at 7a.mthe next morning unless of course you were forced to work overtimedue to some incident occurring during your shift.

My sergeant on the night shift had three children and we enjoyedeach other’s company and always had some fun on shift together.

I remember on the Tuesday night of that week sitting down withhim and talking about Holly. I was telling him how beautiful she was; what a great baby she was; how she had never been sick andhow I was so rapt to be a dad and have someone as wonderful as her

for a daughter. I couldn’t wait to get home to see her. I was so atpeace with the world.



I knew that the first five months was the critical time for cot deathand had totally accepted in my own heart that Holly was throughthat barrier. It had been almost five months to the day she was bornand I had let my defences down completely. I had relaxed and hadtotal belief that Holly was not going to die from cot death. This wasthe very night I realised what great joy it was to be a father andcouldn’t wait to see her that Wednesday morning.

It had been a very uneventful Tuesday night on shift. Crime hadtaken the night off. The only thing that got the blood pumping was acouple of calls saying that a bus full of tourists had crashed inKooweerup. Turned out they were prank calls. Thank God. As 7am

ticked over the morning shift arrived and I bade the guys farewell.

It was only a short drive to our home in Cranbourne. I recall it beinga fairly warm morning. Slightly overcast as I pulled into thedriveway.

I would always head straight for Holly’s room in the morning to seeher before going to bed. Some people need to stay awake for a while

after a night shift. Have some breakfast. Maybe even stay up tilllunch time. But when I was on nightshift I couldn’t wait to get to bed.

I would go to the toilet, clean my teeth then jump under the covers.In two minutes I would be fast asleep.

I crept into Holly’s room on the morning of Wednesday, January 18th, 1989, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep. But in my mind hoping that she would already be awake or that my presence would wake her so I could see those beautiful big blue eyes staringat me and that beautiful mouth with the biggest smile beaming atme.

I was not disappointed as I poked my head into her room. She was

lying there wide awake and as she noticed me the most beautifulsmile I had ever seen lit up her face and her eyes looked into mine



with that look and feeling that only a father and daughter canexperience and feel.

At that very moment I knew what love was. It was there in that

room. Time stood still. There was no time. I was living andexperiencing the present moment like never before. I had no ideathat this would be the last time that I would see Holly alive. It wasas if she was giving me a lifetime of love in that one moment. Ileaned into her cot and gave her a kiss. I stroked her forehead and whispered into her ear “Goodnight Hol. I love you beautiful girl.”

We all have memorable moments in our lives but without doubt the

memory of that morning will live with me forever. Nothing I haveexperienced before or since comes close to the love and joy Iexperienced with Holly at that moment. I will never forget it. We were together as one. We still are.

It was around 11a.m that I heard the bedroom window beingpounded on and a voice calling my name. I remember waking with a jolt and wondering what the hell was going on. I actually felt quite

annoyed at being woken. It took a while to come to my senses butafter a few seconds I realised it was my mother-in law. She was yelling out “Kevin, Kevin, quick it’s Holly. She is at the doctor’s andthere is something wrong with her breathing.”

I jumped out of bed and quickly got dressed. I remember putting ona pair of blue tracksuit pants and a blue and white sweater, with the words ‘San Francisco’ written on the front that I had bought over in

America fifteen months earlier. It is amazing the things weremember at critical times in our lives. The things that stick in ourminds. I went to the front door and my mother-in-law repeated herearlier warning. She looked very upset and worried. I keptreassuring her that Holly would be fine. She drove me to thedoctor’s surgery that was about one kilometre away from where welived.

I remember on the way constantly reassuring her that there wasnothing to worry about and that Holly would be awake and laughing



when we arrived. I honestly believed that I would arrive at thesurgery and the doctor would say that everything is fine and she was just a bit off colour. I vividly recall when I was being driven to thesurgery that in my head I had total confidence that Holly would becrawling around the floor of the surgery and would look up at me with those beautiful eyes of hers and smile. I was actually lookingforward to seeing her.

When we arrived I was ushered immediately from the waiting roomand into a medical room. I was met by our family doctor. I noticedthere were four ambulance officers also in the room who weregathered around a bed that was directly behind the doctor. His first

words to me were “I am sorry. We tried everything.”

At this moment in time I genuinely had no idea what he was talkingabout. I said to him, “What do you mean? What are you talkingabout?” My mind was just numb. He said again, “I am sorry. Wetried everything.” I was still confused. I had been in a deep sleeponly to be woken and driven down to the doctor’s surgery. Nothing was making sense. I then looked over at the ambulance officers

standing around the bed. The pain of losing a child had hit themhard. All four had tears in their eyes. I then noticed the small childlying on the bed.

It was Holly.

♥

The doctor asked me if I would like to hold her and passed her tome. I held her tight and looked at her beautiful face. She seemed socontent as though she was sleeping peacefully. It did not registerthen that she had died and it would not register for some time. My body had shut down emotionally and I was numb.

My wife had been at the hairdresser that morning and her mum had

been looking after Holly. She arrived at the surgery a short timelater. When she walked in she was understandably distressed andcrying, in shock and very emotional. She was asking me questions



but I had no answers. We both just kept looking at this beautifulchild who had just died.

I had entered a vacuum. No feeling, no emotion, no tears, no pain.

Nothingness.

The pain of losing a child had just begun.

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An Angel Goes to Heaven