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Courtesy of Elena Matyas
Trigger warning: child loss
June 28, 2019 was a crisp, sunny day in Southern California. After our typical morning routine, accented by a âYay! itâs Friday!â cheer, my husband and I dropped off our daughter Roxie at a well-known family-run recreational child care facility in greater Los Angeles. We kissed Roxie on the lips, told her we loved her to the moon and back and watched as she ambled down the grassy hill to meet her new friends at campfire.
That was the last time we saw Roxie alive.
It was only an hour later when the ambulance doors swung open outside the trauma entrance of the hospital where Roxie was born only six years earlier. I shuddered in horror as her sparkling blue eyes were stuck half-open and black. Her slim body was bloated nearly beyond recognition. Once radiant skin went waxy-blue. She smelled like rusty metal.