My Second-Born Died, Life Went On

On September 10, 1989, my second-born daughter Audréy Renée-Maree Hitchcock died. And life went on. For me, that meant I went to work on the day she died, after spending the night in a hospital basically waiting for her to die. I didn’t have a choice.

Back then, I had a sub-contractor job of stuffing and delivering 1,100 advertisement bags door-to-door. The bags got stuffed on Friday and delivered Saturday and Sunday. Half the bags got delivered Saturday, then Saturday night, Audréy went to the emergency room at Knox Community Hospital, then life-flighted to Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Sunday, she died, all her organs failing. Sunday afternoon I was back in Mount Vernon, delivering those blasted MIDS bags.

Because people depended on those free bags, and the death of my daughter impacted their lives not at all. On the worst, most evil day of my life, I soldiered on. Because I had to.

Run the New Jerk City marathon as scheduled and quit crying that the police won’t be there for when New Yorkers do what New Yorkers do 365 days a year anyway.