By Guylaine Spencer
1. He was born with a hole in his heart and was a blue baby. Right after his birth, he was rushed out
of town to the Hospital for Sick Children and spent the rest of his life in an incubator.
2. “The staff there didn’t want me to hold him. I insisted. I only got to hold him once.” (Mom)
3. “He was such a big baby. He would have made a fine football player.” (Dad)
4. He lived for seven days. His heart was donated to medical science for research.
5. He was named after Mom’s father.
6. They buried Tommy’s remains in his maternal grandparents’ plot. His name doesn’t appear on the
tombstone. Mom took me to visit his burial spot once. We rode the bus out to the cemetery. It’s one
of my earliest memories. I might have been about five years old.
7. When there was a big snowstorm, Mom would tell us that Tommy and the other baby angels were
having pillow fights in heaven, and the snowflakes were the pillow feathers.
8. The doctor told Dad he should get Mom pregnant as soon as possible—to take her mind off her loss.
“So that’s when we had you.” (Dad)
9. There is no photograph of Tommy. The only material evidence of his life is his baptismal certificate.
It used to hang on the wall in my parents’ bedroom, but Mom took it down after Dad spent too many
nights getting drunk and staring at it and crying. More than fifty years after his birth, we put the
certificate into Mom’s casket.
10. Tommy only lived seven days, but he never stopped being part of our family. I feel he has walked
beside me and witnessed everything with me. Sixty years on, he’s still my silent companion.