Fragments Part II - The Day My World Ended

While I did say that Part II would be "creepy sounds from the basement" I have since changed my mind. I do apologize however, I will be giving you the backstory for why there were creepy sounds in the basement. It was me, I was making those creepy sounds. Terrifying screams, crying and heartbreaking grief... 

Today is July 31, 2026 (posted August 1). It has been 12 years since the actual worst days of my life. But before I get to that, I feel I owe you a little more backstory. 

My daughter, Leticia, was born on August 7, 2013. I survived an emotionally turbulent pregnancy as my ex loved to put me through ridiculous tests of loyalty and jealousy. Everyone makes mistakes, especially in those adolescent years through the 20’s. While I would have preferred for us to just end things, it was my first relationship and I was not yet aware of just how much I had lost myself trying to stay in a relationship with someone that clearly did not want me and, as a result, I clung to naïve thoughts and him because I was determined that my Leti would not grow up in a broken home.

Within a month of Leti’s birth, I was given an ultimatum by my job. I was an administrative assistant for a storage company, who shall remain nameless, and I learned that they were not as excited about the birth of my daughter as I was. No. My 8 weeks of unpaid maternity leave had given them a bit of heart burn and the fact that I still needed to take time off to take her to her newborn check-up visits with her pediatrician seemed to have turned me into an ulcer that they needed to remedy. So, in October 2013, they presented me 3 options: commit myself to not taking any more time off, I leave on my own accord with a 6 week severance package, or they will be “forced” to let me go. I ended up choosing the severance package and that is what ultimately led to the eviction. Just two months after I welcomed my precious baby girl into this world, it already felt like I was being punished for it. Then came the eviction and the break up. October of 2013 was a bad month for me. 

I tried as best I could to find a job and a daycare. I managed to have 1 short term temporary office gig that December as a receptionist but, they gave the permanent position to someone else. So, for the next 7 ½ months, I was a stay at home mom paying my own way with the remainder of my severance and unemployment checks. At the beginning July of 2014 I finally landed another temp-to-perm gig and it was with the same company my ex was working for. (I know, I know. It was a horrible decision and I look back at the way I was so open with strangers about trying to put my family back together with a smile on my face and zero shame is "fifty-‘leven" different kinds of fucked. I was hurting so much. Still a bit embarrassed about it but I was a 24 year old single-mom on a mission to try and get him to take me back by becoming a good Christian woman. *gags*) There were 2 weeks of training and I was excited but, I couldn’t shake the feeling of utter dread. Like something terrible was going to happen. I felt it for weeks. I just thought it was pre-mature separation anxiety, you know? I had been a stay at home mom for so long at that point, the thought of not being with my baby all day was agony. The good news was that I at least had a daycare lined up for under $200 per week. She was highly recommended and very nice when I met her. She had already watched Leti a few times -for 2 months when my maternity leave ended and wouldn’t charge me at all when I went on job interviews so, I wasn’t worried. I will also leave her name out of this as I will do for many of the people involved in my story. If any of them ever read this, they know who they are.

One day, mid- July 2014, my best friend called me to tell me that a mutual close friend of ours from high school had OD’d on heroin and died. The funeral would be in a few days. Aside from the shock and horror that I knew so little about this supposed close friend of ours that I never knew had a drug problem, I was heartbroken at the brilliant life taken so soon. Another reminder that tomorrow is not promised to anyone. We all meet the end of life at some point, we just hope we get the chance to grow old...

My mom was not available to watch Leti so that I could attend the funeral so, I had to bring her with me. As I sat in the pews of the church, I saw so many familiar faces but funerals are the worst time and location to reunite with people, I feel. The default "It's good to see you." is tainted by grim circumstances. Then, there was this ominous shadow loomed over me the entire time. It clung to me like thick fog that started choking the air around me. I chalked it up to my severe distaste for open casket funerals. It started when I was a small child and never really went away. It would stay with me in the weeks and months ahead. That was July 16, 2014. I started my first day of training for this new job that same day and Leti started going back to daycare. 

Now, when Leti started going back to daycare, things were different than they were when she first started going. She was still an infant, only a few months old, during the first stint in daycare. Now she was 11 months old and walking. I was unaware that this lady had many older kids at the daycare but apparently, she had taken on quite a few new kids in addition to Leti. The toddlers that could walk and the older kids were downstairs; I later discovered this because they chastised me for not telling them she could climb stairs. She climbed to the top of the stairs without anyone noticing “Well, why would I need to do that if where she spends her time doesn’t have stairs?” Yep. That’s how I found out things were now different for her. This was her first week back. Shouldn’t they be chastised for not telling me that she would be in a different area with older, bigger kids? Yes, but I brushed it off and tried to be respectful. Then I found out that the daycare owner had taken on a part-time job and it was her assistant and the assistant’s boyfriend that were there with the children most of the time. I found this out during the second week that Leti was back at daycare. By the third week, I had a list of things that I needed to talk to the daycare owner about and was told that Thursday, July 31, 2014 would be the next day that she would be present to speak with me when I came to pick Leti up. I wrote everything out: where did the red mark on her ear come from? Has anything happened, she isn’t acting like herself these last couple of days, and please suction her nose like I asked because even though the assistant isn’t hearing congestion in her nose, I do. The conversation that I was to have with the daycare owner never happened because on July 31, 2014, Leti stopped breathing during her nap and for 3 hours the daycare owner and the police tried frantically to get in touch with me and/or my ex to get permission to airlift her to the children’s hospital. Why did it take 3 hours? Because the company we worked for was a call center and they did not allow you to have your phone out and your ringer had to be on silent during work hours. This all happened after lunch breaks were over and I grabbed my phone during my last 15 minute break to see several missed calls and when I called the daycare owner back, I was speaking with a police officer. Telling me she stopped breathing during her nap, they don’t know when, they tried CPR but the local hospital was not equipped to treat her. I gave consent for her to be airlifted to DC and got in the car with my ex and drove like hell to get there. I called my parents and my ex’s family. 

When we got there they were already telling us that she was brain dead but, they have a protocol to follow, you see. They have to run their tests and observe for at least 24 hours, checking for signs of life, before they can officially declare someone brain dead. They monitored her for 48 hours after arrival at the hospital. I spent 4 long days in the hospital waiting and praying and begging God to make her open her eyes; make her eyes respond to the light; make her start breathing on her own so they can take the tubes out. Pure terror lived inside my body for these 4 days. I knew by all the things they had to do that she was gone. Her body couldn’t stay warm on it’s own. That was the biggest clue. But I also got to see just how little hope there was when during one of their final checks to see if her eyes would respond to light… her eyes were different; swollen from the pressure inside of her skull. It was a blunt force head trauma they said. Her head had filled with so much fluid and it was too late by the time she finally got to the hospital. There were no life saving measures that could be performed. This was an amalgamation of at least 10 different episodes of Grey’s Anatomy manifested in real life with my daughter and I as it’s heart-breaking subjects. Only it wasn’t an episode of Grey’s… it was my life. Though, in a funny way all those binge sessions of Grey’s Anatomy prepared me in way for what was now inevitable. 

While waiting for the official declaration that was sure to arrive in a matter of time, I was approached and questioned by the police about what happened. I only knew what happened at home, not at daycare. It really does feel as vile as it seems on TV doctor shows, the moment when they approach you for organ donation. They really don’t wait for the declaration to ask you. They ask while you are trying your damnedest to hold on to what sliver of hope you have left. Even so, I thought that if this is happening and someone else could be saved from this awful suffering that I am feeling right now, then “OK, I’ll do it”. And I did. They declared Leti brain dead on August 2nd, 2014. It took them 24 hours to get blood samples and call the donor doctors to see if she was a match for anyone. Her heart, kidneys and liver went on to save 4 lives. A fragment of myself sits in the hospital room still, staring blankly at the floor as the doctors wheel Leti out to the operating room and my mom and step-dad walk with them to see her off because I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t. 

In case you were wondering, I lost that temp job. Apparently having a child die and needing time to figure out if you're not the one that died is not a strong reason for a company to keep you. I couldn't go home for 6 weeks. A time period we will have to discuss another time but, when I finally did return home, whenever my parents were at work, I spent a lot of time doing puzzles at the dining room table or going into the basement to let the pain escape my chest. Wailing, sobbing, and screaming at God for not answering my prayers. For abandoning me after all the time I had spent going to church, praying and believing that God was going to fix my life and not let me be a single mom and Leti was going to grow up with her Dad in her life always... what a joke!!! Mind you this was the basement of a townhome - so yes... the neighbors probably heard me. Of course, by then all of our neighbors knew about me and my baby. Had met her and complimented her and upon her death all attended her funeral.

I have a picture of Leti's hand in mine, one last time, on the hospital bed. I have the pink cap that they used to try to keep her warm and the seal I bought for her when we took her to the National Aquarium. I gave everything else away to people I happened to meet over the years that we pregnant and I wanted Leti's things to go to people that could use them. I didn't want anyone wondering how they were going to be able to get this and that if I had it.

Today is the 12th  anniversary of those awful days. I can still see the hospital room and hear Guys and Dolls and Pitch Perfect playing in the background. I watched them over and over whenever there was a break in visitors. 

To answer the questions that I assume you have... no, I do not know who did this. Leti did not sustain any injuries at home and a home investigation, several interviews and a polygraph confirmed as much. The injury happened while she was at daycare and yet, the investigation was stalled for various reason over the course of the first 3 years. Then there was a new detective on the case. It took almost as long for all of her belongings to be released from evidence. To this day, we still don't know what happened to her. I didn't lawyer up because 24 year old me with zero money to bury her own child had not a cent to put towards legal consultations. I was instructed not to speak to the daycare owner because of the investigation but come to find out she was not a willing participant in the investigations. I try to make peace with not knowing. Everything happens for a reason and sometimes things happen for no reason at all.

To be continued.