Madison was a little girl born on father's day, 1999. She was loved emmensly before she was ever born. She was my first grandchild, from my only daughter.

My joy was short lived. Little did I know on June 20, 1999 that Madison would assume a new role to me and her mother, and for the world.

On August 28, 1999 I recieved a call from my hysterical daughter. Madison was in critical condition in an emergency room, fighting for her life. She was 9 weeks old. It was my daughter's birthday.

My mind was racing on the drive to the hospital, which was 30 miles away. Why was Madison in critical condition and the thought, the feeling, that her father, Murphy must have had something to do with it.

My daughter had started working the night shift at Waffle House only weeks before. Not wanting to leave her baby with a stranger, feeling Madison would be safer in the care of her father rather than a "paid stranger" she made the decison to work at night.

When I got to the hospital, my daughter and Murphy were outside the emergency room. My daughter was still hysterical, pleading with me to go inside and check on Madison. Through her tears she explained they tried to put her and Murphy into the "quiet room", which sent alarms off to her that Madison was dead. I ran into the emergency room and to the nurse's station. "Where is Madison?" I asked. "Are you Grandma?" asked the nurse. I was taken to the room where Madison was. She was on the stretcher, naked. She had tubes and wires in what seemed like every place possible on her tiny body. She was on a ventilator, not breathing on her own. My mind was racing. As a nurse, part of me was assessing her. As her grandmother, I was totally panicked at what I was seeing.

I circled her, assessing. Listening. Asking. It made no sense to me in any way. A doctor approaches me and I ask, the obvious question. What is wrong with Madison. The doctor gave me an apologetic look. He did not know exactly what was wrong with her. "All I can say for sure is that we have a normal looking 2 month-old baby who is not breathing or responding. It could be some kind of bizarre brain infection or something. We are running tests. " None of what was said to me made any sense at all. How could they "not know"? After a brief period of time, Madison was prepared to be flown by helicopter to Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital in St. Louis, Mo. I became more hysterical, trying to stay calm for my daughter. We drove to St. Louis, questioning Murphy the entire trip. What happened? He said he didn't know.

Once we arrived at Cardinal Glennon, we started getting pieces of information. The pieces added up to a puzzle that no parent, or grandparent ever wants to put together. Madison was a victim of Shaken Baby syndrome. Shaken nearly to death at the hands of her angry, rage-filled father.

The next few weeks were indeed a time of turmoil for Madison and my family. Madison was not expected to live. We were asked if she would be an organ donor, and we felt they would let her die for that purpose. We were told to take her off the life support machines that were doing her breathing for her- it was "our window of opportunity to let her go" said the grim doctor. We would not consent. Murphy was in jail by this time, and we were left to deal with his act of devastation. We would never give up on Madison. NEVER.

Madison survived when life support was removed. Her doctors remained grim. Even if she did live, her life would be that of a "vegetable". It did not matter, not to us, whatever Madison's life would be like, we would take care of her. No matter what we had to do, we would do it.

Madison lived for exactly 6 years from the date of her injury. She was so loved. She did well in therapies. She did so much more than the doctors ever predicted for her. After she got the trach, her hospitalizations became less frequent. We had a team of nurses to care for her at home, including me. Madison recieved excellent care. Her nurses were knowlegable and caring and became friends with our family. We had our share of problems, but we always overcame any hurdles that were in our way. Everything we did, every move we made, every decision was based on how it would affect Madison.

Madison was a shining little angel to us. She could not talk,  yet she had an extraordinary gift of communition. She smiled, she coo'd, she pursed her lips in anticipation of getting a kiss. She knew her mother, she knew me. SHe knew the difference between us. SHe held her arms up in the air, wanting to be picked up. She was anything but a "vegetable". She was an inspiration, and everyone who knew her was changed by her.

This is only the beginning of Madison's story.

On August 26, 2005, Madison's life came to a tragic, unbelievable end. I got up and got ready for work as usual that morning. I had not met the nurse who had cared for Madison that night until then, she was a new nurse to us. The nurse told me Madison had a great night, no problems. This nurse was due to get off work, relieved by another nurse at 7:00am. I left Madison at 6:25am. She was sleeping, she was, in fact, doing very well. Certainly there was nothing wrong, I would not have left her if anything was wrong.

At 6:45AM, I recieved an urgent phone call at work from home. My 13 year-old foster child told me that Madison was in trouble, that the trach was out and the nurse could not get it back in. My daughter was doing mouth-to-mouth breathing. The nurse had not called 911. I told my foster child to hang up and call 911. I turned and looked at my coworkers, it seemed everything stopped when I picked up the phone, in fact, my panic was obvious. I started to run for home, when I got a second call. My daughter was screaming at me "Mom, its bad, get home, get home now!" She gave me vital signs, which verified that indeed, Madison was in big trouble. I raced to my car and drove the one mile home. My street was blocked, with police cars, fire trucks and ambulances. I parked and ran to my home. Madison was on the stretcher, her heart stopped as I made my way inside. "GO! GO! GO!' I screamed at the paramedics. I ordered my daughter and my 2 grandsons into my van, and sped off behind the ambulance. I was in a total state of panic. I begged God, "not today, Lord, please, not today!"

My 2 young grandsons, ages 2 and 4, were dressed only in their underwear, literally pulled out of bed to witness this horrible scene. My daughter was in her nightclothes as well.

At the hospital we were ushered into the quiet room. I begged God over and over. My coworkers were gathering now, trying to quiet us. "I can't do this" I cried. Pleading with the staff to save Madison. Pleading with God. Somebody took my grandsons into another room, got them clothes and breakfast. Someone cared for them so that they were not traumatized any more than they already were. They did not see their Mother or me breaking down. I am thankful for that. Madison was pronounced dead at 7:25AM. We had to wait for the coroner to  come and start an investigation into why Madson died. My daughter's anger came out, the nurse who was supposed to be caring for Madison had to be secluded from us.

The next day the coroner released Madison after an autopsy was done. Since we are orginally from New Orleans, we decided that Madison would be buried there with her great-great grandmother. Arrangements were made, and Madison was flown to New Orleans. That was on Saturday, 8/27/05. My sister, Cindy came to us that day. I picked her up at the airport at the same time that Madison's body was put on a plane. I was vaguely aware that there was a hurricane out in the Gulf. Until Madison's body went to New Orleans. We planned to begin our travel the next day. But that could not happen, New Orleans was being evacuated and we would not be allowed into the city. At first, we were not alarmed. We had the typical "Hurricane mentality", we had boarded up and taped windows many times before. We foolishly thought that it would just delay our plans for a few days.

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with incredible strength on Monday, 8/29/05. We watched TV with horror, watched our home town get swept away. We were not able to get in touch with the funeral home where Madison was sent. We were told that when they had to evacuate that Madison would be put into a "sealed vault" until they could return. It didn't sound like there was any way anything could happen to Madison. As the days turned into weeks, we learned that Madison's body was indeed lost. The funeral home was flooded and destroyed, no one had any idea where Madison's body was. For 4 agonizing weeks, we waited. We watched the news reports and wondered, where is she? Is she in that flooded water somewhere? We could not get any answers, a little girl's body lost in the flood waters were not a priority to anyone but us. I was contacted by a reporter from CNN that Madison's body had been found some 35 miles from New Orleans, that she had been put into a black body bag and stored in a refridgerated trailer. We were allowed to go to New Orleans October 10, 2005 to bury Madison. There was no funeral, the funeral home was destroyed as was the church. There were no flowers. There was no beautiful music, no parlor for us to sit in and be with others to mourn our little angel. There was a little casket, sealed, a lonely grave and a priest. We left New Orleans feeling very empty. Our home town was gone. It literally looked like it had been bombed. And, we left Madison there. We were empty, inside. There was no closure. I don't think there will ever be closure. Not for Madison. Not for New Orleans.

We need a voice, for Madison. We need for her story to be told. Not for sympathy. We need to raise our voices for all of the babies out there whose parents don't know about the dangers of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Madison had no voice, it is up to us, to give her a loud and clear voice. Please help us. Tell this story, teach others what we had to learn the hard way. If we can stop one person from picking up a baby in anger or frustration, it will help us to make sense of it all. We are one family, one shaken family among thousands of other families who live this nightmare every year. Yet, we continue to hear the stories of others like Madison.

Please frogive me, I have tried to just give the details of Madison's life. There is so much more to it. I am trying to "condense" our nightmare and it is very difficult to do.

What I know for sure is that we all have a responsibility to stop all forms of child abuse and abuse against women. It is a responsibility that I take personally, I feel that I have to speak out.

I wrote a book, which was published in 2004, before Madison's death. I told the world about abuse that I suffered as a child; physical and emotional batterings from my mother, sexual abuse by my stepfather and uncle from age 9-16. I talked openly in my book about the effects that abuse had on me as an adult; as a woman; as a wife and as a mother. Now, I have to tell "the rest of our story" and frankly, I need help to do that. It is no longer "good enough" to get a book published and promote it to teach, I must become more proactive to teach. I am one grandmother but I have a message important enough for the world to stop and listen to.

The title of my book is I Am Still Standing by Sue Ann Worsley.

My e-mail address is sue-connolly@sbcglobal.net