Memory Of Family's Infant Daughter Lives On Through School Library
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Brooklyn Park family is in the thick of grief after losing their youngest daughter in March. Baby Collette, who they called "Coco," will live on in the elementary school she would have attended.
There are still some smiles in the Deley's Brooklyn Park home, but now there are also tears.
"You just want everyone who comes into your house to know about your whole family," Anna Deley said.
That's why she has photos all over of a family no longer whole. She tells the story of her youngest, Colette Anna Belle Deley.
"She was born perfectly healthy and just came in contact with a very common virus that she was just too young to fight," Anna said.
Only nine days separate Baby Coco's birth and death. It happened in March.
"We didn't get as much time as a mother should have with their child," Anna said.
"No one ever expects to be in the position we're in," her husband Chad said. "You don't ever want to think about burying a child, they're supposed to do it to you."
One of the realities these parents said they face is that Coco will never share a school day with her older sisters. So they've decided to build and donate a new school library in her name.
"So that our girls cans still attend school together -- not in the way we had planned, but at least in spiritual presence," Anna said.
"Everyday they'll walk by and see their sister," her husband Chad said.
"I can't even explain the capacity of heart ache and pain that comes from losing your child, but we just want to make sure we do good in her name and it's not just all sadness, because she's so good," Anna said.
There will be a statuette of St. Colette, and the library colors will be purple and green to match Coco's nursery.
"Collette's older sisters were so excited to be big sisters for her and teach her so much, and now little Coco's teaching them and guiding them," Anna said.
And what better place to learn, than school. The library at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School is already under construction, the family is raising money to be able to finish it properly.
If you'd like to help build Coco's library, we've got a link on wcco.com https://www.youcaring.com/colette-anna-belle-deley-st-vincent-de-paul-school-566145
