Leon

To all who have felt the pain of a lost baby please don't read this story.

Its 1991 I'm 17 and my friend Lisa and her partner Darrel had just had a baby boy named Leon he was so sweet but tiny and was a month early due to complications but healthy with strong lungs. You could hear him cry in Lisa's room upstairs at the back of the house even when I was outside on the front garden. He wanted for nothing the slightest whimper and they both ran to check on him day and night.

For a few days I noticed they were not in at all and popped to Lisa's mum's house 3 doors down the street to see if they were there, iris (Lisa's mum) told me that Leon had stopped feeding a few days before and was in the hospital, but coming home that day. Then the phone rang. It was Darrel, Leon had stopped breathing, his heart had suddenly stopped and the doctors could not do anything to bring him back. He was just 2 months old.

Lisa and Darrel were obviously in pieces, they argued for 3 days solid after blaming each other and Darrel left. I tried to help Lisa as much as I could, I even moved in for a few days slept on the sofa. We would sit chatting until the early hours; Lisa could not go into her bed room the crib was still in there.

The funeral day arrived and Darrel came to be with Lisa they made up stood on the front step Darrel said he was lost without her. A few weeks later Darrel came home with a picture of Leon it had been enlarged and framed they put it in the living room above the fireplace. That's when things started to go strange.

We all heard a baby crying as though hungry (a parent knows babies have different cries). The mobile above the crib (now in the spare room they could not throw it away) would play on its own. And the picture would not stay on the wall, no matter what they put it up with. It would be on the floor every morning but never got damaged. Lisa was unable to cope with the things going on and went to her mum's house taking the picture with her she gave it to her mum to look after. The same things started to happen at iris's house. The crying sounds, things would be moved around; the picture would be found on the floor.

At first Lisa though it was following her so she went home again but left the picture, things got worse! The crying baby sounds got louder lasted longer and the picture would be found each morning by the front door no matter where it was put the night before.

Lisa and Darrel were arguing again Lisa blamed Darrel for getting the picture done, Darrel said it was not him; the nurses at the hospital had done it for them. Lisa asked him what he meant, he said yes he got it framed as a way to remember Leon the nurse at the hospital had took the picture and had it enlarged (she was an old friend of Darrel's). When? Lisa asked he was hooked up to machines all the time but none showed in the picture. Just after he died, the nurse had dressed him took a picture before bringing him into Lisa and Darrel to say goodbye to him! The very picture that was now moving around her mum's house each night!

Lisa had her dad burn the picture, the crying stopped, things stopped being moved and the mobile stopped playing by its self. Lisa always said Leon was there but could not rest until the picture had been gotten rid of, Darrel said she was crazy but could not explain the things that had happened. Lisa and Darrel split up for good.

Whenever she would go to visit Leon's grave she said she would always hear the music his mobile played playing as though some where close but never loud enough to figure out from what direction. I heard it myself once when I went with her.

Lisa moved away a few years later and we lost contact, but I still say hello to Leon when I pass the grave yard where he is buried.