Becca wrote:

> Kathleen wrote:
>
>> My sister's best friend from high school went through an ugly divorce
>> and moved down to Phoenix to be closer to my sister. She got her life
>> turned around, married again, had a baby girl.
>>
>> And one morning at 6 am my sister got a frantic call from her friend's
>> husband. She'd slept on the couch the night before because she had a
>> cold and didn't want to keep her husband awake with snoring,
>> nose-blowing, etc. when he had to work the next morning. And when he
>> got up he found her blue and unresponsive.
>>
>> He'd already called 911 before he called my sister (an emergency room
>> RN), but Sis beat the ambulance there and started CPR even though she
>> was quite sure her friend was dead. The EMTs knew her from work and
>> she rode along in the ambulance while her friend's husband bundled the
>> baby into her car seat and followed behind.
>>
>> There never was any hope. She'd died in her sleep some time during
>> the night of a ruptured aortic aneurism.
>>
>> My sister was never the same after that. I think the shock and horror
>> of trying to breathe life back into her obviously dead best friend
>> while her husband and baby screamed and sobbed released a blast of
>> adrenaline that fried some of her circuits.
>
>
> This was rough on your sister, I am sure. So, how is her friend's
> husband and the baby doing?

Better now. The baby is 14 years old and has her mother's eyes.

As a mark of how devastated and addled all concerned were at the time,
the husband tried to give his daughter to my sister, and my sister
briefly contemplated taking her. She had two fine sons, but had always
wished for a little girl, her husband was willing, and the child was all
that was left of her friend...

But then she realized that the husband was probably clearing the decks
for a suicide attempt and much as she wanted a daughter, she told him
that the baby had already lost her mother and NEEDED her daddy and how
dare he even think of abandoning his own flesh and blood? And she
alerted both sets of grandparents and joined with them to close ranks
and force him to seek counseling and medical help.

And they got through it, all of them, awful as it was. And eventually
it was okay. Anything that can be survived can be gotten past. But it
changes you.