Dean Hayes

Sunday morning, Elena screamed in pain from the bedroom as Joseph ran downstairs to get the telephone. He quickly called 911. Elena was about to give birth.
The paramedics rushed into the appartment inside New York City and up the stairwells. Elena was laying on the bed, holding a pillow over her mouth so the neighbours
could keep sleeping. Four painful hours later, Richard was born. A beautiful son, with pitch black hair on his head. Not a sound did he make as he came out in the open,
cold, cruel world.

They washed the baby up and tucked a towel around his body and placed him in the arms of Elena. Both Elena and Joseph shared a tear as they watched their first born
lay in the safe arms, grynting and gasping, making baby sounds. A smell of blessed air came into the room and refreshed their poor lifes, and they had no worries at all.
After two days in the hospital with Richard, they were free to leave. Joseph has been at the hospital all the time, and was very eager to come home and start their lifes
as a family, and not just a couple. They've already arranged for a wedding to happen, and they've called around their closes family so everyone could come and see
the little miracle that was laying on his carpet on the sofa.

A few days after everyone has been on their visit, the house phone called. The time was around six at the evening, and it felt bad right away. Joseph picked up the phone
and got pitch white in his face after the first second. It was from the hospital, and they needed Richard down there again.
The doctors has found something around Richard's stomach, and they wanted to check on it closer.
The next day Joseph and Elena packed up their stuff and went to stay at the hospital yet again for a couple of days.
The doctors took some tests and sent little Richard through several stages of X-ray to try to find out what that was. And they got the answer after two days.
Little Richard was born with cancer. That was highly rare, and it was just a few happenings in U.S per that date. The little Hayes family was broken down in pieces.
They was willing to do whatever was in their power to make Richard healthy, but due to his very young age the hospital didn't take the risk of operate on him.
But they could try to stabilize it, and then operate him when he got older and stronger. And so they did.
Richard lived as a happy child, however in and out of the hospital every now and then. But it was over for Richard two weeks before his fifth's birthday. The cancer
had spread way faster than the doctors thought it would, and it has taken Richards organs already. Joseph and Elena gave them the okey to pull the plug, as they didn't
want little Richie to suffer no more. It was clearly a painful way of living for Richard, and they sent him to a better place. In the arms of God.