Tribute to cousin Kaylie
UPDATE, November 26, 6p: I just went to little Kaylie’s wake, the first wake of a baby I’ve ever attended. My cousin Sam said he was googling Kaylie’s name and found this post and your comments and was very touched. Thank you for your kind words and prayers.
November 24, 5:30p
My little 2nd cousin Kaylie Goff went home to Jesus yesteday morning. I was related to Kaylie 2 ways, through my first cousin Dian (Coffin) Goff and through my daughter-in-law Bernadine (Goff) Stanek.
Kayle had Down syndrome. She was 13 months old. She had been through major heart surgery in August. Children with Down syndrome often have heart problems.
Kaylie died unexpectedly in her Daddy’s arms. First, her Dad, my cousin Sam, posted this:
November 23, 2007 at 10:23 AM CST
Hello Sam here… Please sing with me this morning…”Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now I’M FOUND.” Keep singing or humming if you do not know the words. I have something to share with all who love Kaylie. At approximately 5:30 am this morning Kaylie went to be with the Lord. She went from my arms to the Lord’s arms. We just wonder if she put her little fingers into His mouth like she would do with me? Please pray for us in our loss. We love you all and will let you know about the arrangements as soon as we know. Love to all! Samuel Goff
And then this….
November 23, 2007 at 08:55 PM CST
Hello Sam here… where do I begin? This has been the toughest day of our lives. We are so very tired and yet can not find it to go to sleep. Our little girl no longer needs us. God is feeding her right now. The funeral arangements are as follows: visitation will be on Mon. from 2-4pm and 6-8pm at the Boken funeral home on Kennedy ave. in Hammond. The funeral service will be at the First Baptist Church of Hammond on Tuesday morning at 10 am. Please continue to pray as we are so very weary. Love to all! Kaylie’s daddy
Please pray with me that Sam, April and surviving daughters will find comfort and rest in the Lord.
Thank you.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Jill,
My sincerest condolences on your loss of little Kaylie. She is a beautiful little girl. Thank you for sharing the photos. Kaylie must have been such a joy to her family. Her memory will be a lasting gift to them all.
Jill-
I will be praying for you and your family..How sad it is to lose such a young child. She seems to have been a wonderful little girl and brought such joy to your family…:hugs:
Jill,
Kaylie is beautiful! I am so sorry for you & your family’s temporary absence from her, although she will always be in the hearts and minds of many.
My prayers are with you all during this diffucult time. I pray that God may give all of you peace, comfort and strenghth to move ahead.
God bless each & every one of you!
Jill, that’s very tragic news. I am so sorry for your loss. I will be praying for your family.
Thank you, everyone. Your prayers for Sam, April, and family are appreciated.
My heartfelt sympathy on the loss of such a beautiful baby that I’m sure brought immeasurable joy to her family.
Awww, how sad. :( I’m reading the Memory Keeper’s Daughter and there’s a similar situation in there.
Jill, I’m so sorry. My deepest sympathy to you and your family.
I am humbled by her father’s absolute love and trust in God. I could never have found the strength of soul to have so beautifully described the loss of someone so precious to me. My prayers are with them…
She’s beautiful. I’m so sorry.
Jill,
I’m so sorry, what a beautiful baby. my prayers are with your cousins.
Thank you for sharing, Jill. The family will be in my prayers.
That’s very sad. Words seem trite in such situations.
Wait, I missed something what did SoMG say?
Dear Jill, I am so heartbroken over this. It is the only thing I can think of today.
I can’t imagine the emotional roller coaster Sam and April are going thru right now.
I have prayed 100 times for the whole family.
May we all have the strength to help them thru this time in thier life.
Please Send my love..
Jill,
I am sorry about Kaylie’s death. I will be praying for her family. May she rest in peace with Jesus.
Dear Jill,
I am crying as I read your post and thinking about Kayle. I am so sorry for your family’s loss. My daughter w/DS had open heart surgery as an infant also, and I can’t imagine the pain Sam and family are experiencing. She was a beautiful, special little girl. I will keep them all in my prayers. The way he broke he broke the sad news with “Amazing Grace” as a background was just beautiful.
Sincerely,
Ellie
I’m sorry I have Kaylie’s name misspelled in post above….
SOMG, please do not comment again on this topic. Thank you.
I’m very sorry for your family’s loss. She was very beautiful and will be greatly missed I’m sure. God bless,
Patricia
My deepest sympathies at your loss. I will be praying for your strength until you are all reunited in Heaven.
She was such a beautiful little baby. I know she will be missed by all who knew her. I am so very sorry for your loss.
Eternal rest, grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace.
I”m so sorry for your loss. All of us at this site are here for you.
Jill, I’m so sorry. No doubt Kaylie was very special and a tremendous joy to your family.
Somg,/ an absolute moron.
I’m very, very sorry for your family’s loss.
May Sam be able to sleep and know his little girl is with her Creator and loves mommy and daddy forever. That she looks down from heaven and sees the tears of mommy and daddy and rejoices at those tears of Sam and his family, and points at them to the Lord God. That Kaylie may send you gentle dreams from knowing how much you loved her soo.
SOMG, you seem to have an inability to speak with ANY sense of decency whatsoever. I have deleted your posts at least 7 times now, and yet you have to keep putting it in.
SOMG,
YOU were a preventable tragedy, yet I don’t wish that you had been aborted. It may have saved lives if you had been aborted, since your desire is to kill unborn children for a living, but I still think that you had a right to life when you were in your mother’s womb. You could have turned out differently, and it’s possible that one day you will feel sorry for the things you have said and done now.
Kaylie’s parents are not grieving her loss simply because of their own selfish desires. They mourn for Kaylie, not themselves. They grieve the fact that Kaylie wasn’t able to live longer.
They do not grieve the fact that they wanted a healthy child to themselves, and didn’t have one. They loved her unconditionally. She didn’t have to be perfect in order to have the love of her family.
SOMG, You are a rotten, rotten person for saying the things you say, and you really need to grow a heart. You too, Sally.
These people lost someone dear to them, and all you can say is, “Well, could have been prevented”…well, no, it couldn’t and wouldn’t have been prevented, SOMG and Sally. Kaylie’s parents loved her, much to your dismay. They would never have done anything so dreadful as you would want them to do, just so that YOU could be happy that there was one less person to worry about.
Kaylie’s parents loved her so much, they allowed her to live through ALL of her natural life, and didn’t end it prematurely as you would have.
They will always remember Kaylie. Unfortunately, a person who aborts their child because of a defect will never be able to remember those sweet moments that Kaylie’s parents will be able to cherish guilt free.
Bethany, well said. I was going to post a response to Somg, but my response wouldn’t have been as civl and as gracious.
Very nicely put Bethany. In Sally’s defense though, she did not post anything cruel or hurtful on this post, like SoMG did. I mean she has other places but here at least she knows not to say cruel, hurtful things to people mourning a terrible loss.
Again, my prayers go out to Kaylie’s family. We all have another angel watching over us! :)
Actually, Sally did, but I deleted it. Thank you Elizabeth and Carrie for your support.
Oh ok, that would be why I didn’t see it Bethany..so since she did..disregard my defense of any ignorant statements made by her!
Actually I don’t have a problem with Jill’s cousin choosing to keep a Down-Syndrome-affected pregnancy. As far as I’m concerned, that’s up to her, provided she can pay for the kid’s medical care.
I do have a problem with the effort to force others to do the same, however. Imagine being forced to give birth to a doomed, mentally disabled kid you didn’t want.
SoMG,
I understand that being a sociopath you don’t have the luxury of empathy. Most sociopath’s watch other people to see how they react to sensitive situations, and then copy their behavior so as to appear normal.
Well copy this…Jill’s cousin is reading this post. She is not a sociopath and actually has feelings. Your comments are, to say the very least, inappropriate. If you feel that you must make your point, so be it. But PLEASE do it on another thread. It’s what the rest of us would do. You might want to write that down somewhere so that you can use it in the future. Normal people do not make rude and insensitive comments to people that are hurting or suffering. Now repeat that 10 times…
Sally,
Contrary to what you think (and I wonder at the fact that this is how your mind works) Jill did not post this to exploit her family. Many times we have posted about tragedies in our lives here, and being a “family” we share our condolences.
It’s really sad that you feel it necessary to take this opportunity to pick a fight. Censor you? Well, it is our site. And furthermore, we have not censored you for borderline comments when they were directed at us, but Jill family does not post here. They are “innocent bystanders” if you will and should not be dragged into the ugliness that goes on here at times.
As I said to SoMG, any points you wish to make about the value or lack thereof of children with downs syndrome, can be made on a different thread…where it would be appropriate…
Thank you.
*had to delete another comment*
Sally, sorry. You don’t make the rules here. Please, I’m asking you again, respect the rules.
This is Jill’s site. Not yours. Please stop being so insensitive and if you have something to say, say it on another topic.
Sally,
Maybe you haven’t realized this yet, but we are Jills personal friends. Nobody said you couldn’t speak your piece. We just asked that you move it to a different thread.
Why you are having such a hard time with the concept that, public or not, this is still Jill’s blog, and she can post or unpost anything that she pleases, is beyond me.
She chose (and we all know how you feel about choice) to share this with us. And we are choosing (there’s that word again) to keep this particular post free from unpleasant comments. No one is censoring you. Feel free to say anything you want. Just do it on another thread. Not another website, not another blog, just another thread. Would you go to a funeral and spew this stuff to the grieving mother?
Jill,
I am so sorry for you and your family’s loss. What a beautiful child of God. I will be praying for you and your family. I bet Jesus met her with a big hug.
As for Sally and SoMG, what’s wrong with you both? Just bc Kaylie had DS doen’t mean she wasn’t a child who was loved, cherished and adored. I look at people with disabilities as a gift, not a burden. They challenge us and it often causes discomfort. Why? Because it forces us “normal people” to take a good look at ourselves and challenges us to see people for who they are inside. They challenge us to be compassionate and loving to someone “different”. Some are able, but the two of you obviously are incapable of either compassion or love. You both are just amazingly insensitive.
I just posted this on the next thread, but I think it bears repeating here…I’ve been wondering what to say to Kaylie’s parents…I’ve been strangely silent for someone who usually has too much to say…but here goes…(forgive me if you have to read this twice, but I honestly thought I was on this post)
I realize that a lot of people have a hard time understanding suffering and it’s value, but as a Catholic I grew up hearing the words…”offer it up”. I understand those words now. They are sweet words. I understand that Jesus “offered it up” and that his example taught us that suffering is a way for us to help each other.
Sometimes I picture God walking into a room of unborn souls and saying “I’ve got a really big problem down on earth and I’m gonna need a couple of volunteers to do a little suffering for me. It won’t be easy. One of you is going to have to die before you ever even get to be held by your mother, and another one is going to have to live with some physical limitations. You will be ridiculed, laughed at and treated as less than human. You won’t be able to run, ride a bike or hold down a job. You’ll never get married or have kids and your life will be filled with physical pain. But the good that you will do by “offering this up” will be immeasurable and many, many souls will be saved because of your unselfishness. Now, do I have any takers?”
And I can see those precious little souls raising their hands and volunteering to be born with spina bifida, or down syndrome, or some other painful disease…waving them and saying “I will Jesus, I will…pick me!”
And while we here on earth look at them and pity them, and turn our heads away or worse yet, kill them, it is truly us who are blind, and deformed and handicapped. It is us who need healing, and it is these precious, precious children who aid us by “offering it up”. Suffering, viewed properly, can be beautiful and so sweet…
So to Kaylie’s mom and dad, thank you. And thank you to all the Kaylie’s out there who have sacrificed for those of us down here. How brave you were, and how wonderful that tho your life was short, it was filled with joy and love…
Ms Stanek would have shown her sincerity by offering the news on this forum but directing condolences to either the funeral home’s or a memorial site-the appropriate site for such expressions.
This is a cyber debate site-a weblog, a virtual discourse. It is neither a family nor a community. One shouldn’t (and really can’t) change its character or the rules midstream.
Jill can post about things she views as relevant..and obviously one of her family members passing away is relevant to her. Get over yourself and start your own blog if you have such a problem with the postings on this one k?
MK,
Stop making me cry with these beautiful posts of your’s! I would gladly suffer for ANY one of those babies so they don’t have to.
I would gladly suffer for ANY one of those babies so they don’t have to.
Well now, Elizabeth, that was well said indeed. I look at suffering as a fundamental part of the abortion debate.
Best,
Doug
I would have to agree with you there, Doug. Although, I’m sure we could disagree about the details of the particular kinds of suffering…but let’s just stick with the agreement for this brief moment haha.
Philospher,
This is a cyber debate site-a weblog, a virtual discourse. It is neither a family nor a community. One shouldn’t (and really can’t) change its character or the rules midstream.
This site is whatever we make it. And yes, we can CHOOSE to change the rules anytime we want. It is a “family” and it is a “community”…
Ask Lyssie, Rae, Erin, Val, Bethany, John McDonell, Leah, PIP, Mary, Jacquie, Bobby, Midnite, Jill, Kristi, Elizabeth, AB Laura and all the rest if they view this site as “family” and “community”.
We are here for each other on site as well as off. We have shared some of our most intimate secrets with each other. We have cried together, laughed together and celebrated together. We look out for each other and put up with each other. We are continuously growing together. It’s the first place we come in the morning and last place we visit at night. We think about each other even when we are not online. We pray for each other and wonder how the others will react to things that happen to us.
It’s you that cannot come in here midstream and change the rules. Since February, when I first came on, the “rules” have been, we are a community. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t just because it makes you uncomfortable.
Stick around. In time, you too will be considered one of the family.
Family: an association of people who share common beliefs or activities; “the message was addressed not just to employees but to every member of the company family”; “the church welcomed new members into its fellowship”
Community: A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
1. Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
2. Sharing, participation, and fellowship.
I just received an email from Kaylie’s father….
To all who will ever read this…especially SOMG…
When God created my daughter in the womb she had a soul. From the beginning not when man says she has life but when the almighty creator says she has life. Who am I to say God is ever wrong and even consider abortion(murder as God puts it). Kaylie was the best of what I have, and I have 2 other daughters, plus one due in April. As far as SOMG is concerned, I Samuel Ray Goff prayed 2 hours for you before I could write a response. I really do not even know what you said. I know that God sure does and one day I hope you can bow and ask forgiveness for the alternative is far worse than being aborted. Crucify me and my family…we count it a blessing to suffer as He did. He died for the ignorant as well as the wise. I’m sure you fit in there somewhere. God is Good…ALL THE TIME!
Kaylies very proud Daddy
Kaylie’s Daddy rocks!
Bethany,
Thank you so much for posting the email from Sam. What an abosulte shame that he had to take time out of his grieving for his beautiful daughter to even put one thought into what SoMG said.
The selflessness of Sam to pray for SoMG is truly amazing to me.
May God continue to bless you and your family, Samuel Ray Goff! You have been such a witness through all of this. I, for one, am so proud of you guys & consider it a blessing to know you, even if it is through cyberspace!