THE DEATH OF A CHILD, even the sound of it is heart wrenching. I had two children Danny was my firstborn, then Judy five years later. Danny was a healthy baby, and just as healthy as he was, that's how sickly Judy was. At two weeks old she had pneumonia, this left her with asthma. When she outgrew the asthma at age ten, we found out that she had diabetes. Juvenile Diabetes, what a horrifying illness for a child. Try to keep a ten year old on a strict diet. I guess Danny suffered some also, because of her illness, because he was deprived of a lot of things, like candy, cake and ice cream, because we would not bring it into the house, for fear that Judy would eat it. Some time I actually had to wrestle with her to get food away from her, poor child I guess she was starving all the time.

After a few months she had lost so much weight, my mother-in-law told me one day,"If you don't change doctor, that child is going to die." I did change doctor, and this one told me that she couldn't survive on a strict diet, because she was growing and developing, and she needed more food. He said there was no way she could avoid insulin.

I will never forget the morning I had to give her the first shot of insulin. I never slept all night thinking about it. Well, when I got to her bed, she gave me a big smile and said." Now, Mama don't you be nervous, because I am not nervous."

Well she did a lot better on the insulin, but as she grew older the diabetes became worse. On her senior trip I got a call from her teacher that they could not wake her up. I told her to get her to a doctor or hospital at once, and she told me they were at a Dude Ranch somewhere in the wilderness, and there was no hospitals or doctors. Good thing her best friend had been with her once before when this happened, and she got someone to help her force orange juice down her throat and walked her until she revived. What a relief when I got the call that she was O.K.

After her first and only child was born it got even worse. It was so brittle, that it would be 400 and in a flash it would drop to 40 or 50 and she would hit the floor. Many times she would call me and say,"Mama I am going to put the baby in his bed because I feel like I am going to pass out." I would drive 80 or 90 to get to her, and would find her passed out on the floor. I went to see that movie Steel Magnolias, and had to walk out. It was like Judy's life all over again.

My poor baby went through so much in her short

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