hannah paige guerrero march 23, 1999 - january 28, 2002
IAN TENNANT is editor of the Cochrane Eagle in Cochrane, Alberta in Canada. He was a copy editor for the Waco Tribune-Herald and is a good friend to the Waco Guerreros. Upon receiving the news about Hannah's passing, he flew to Texas to attend Hannah's funeral.
Below is the text version of the actual column he wrote for the Feb. 6, 2002 edition of the Cochrane Eagle.
Zack Mclain (w/ beer), Hannah and Ian Tennant
By all accounts, Hannah Paige Guerrero bowled
people over when she
flashed her gorgeous smile. She won me over big time and, in all modesty, I’d
have to say she took a shine to me as well.
I clearly remember Hannah sitting on her father’s lap, stretching towards me,
clapping her tiny hands, laughing, her beaming face fixed on this ugly mug of
mine. We both giggled uncontrollably.
“Hannah Bear”, as her parents, Richard and Heather, and many friends
called her, was buried Feb. 2 in Corpus Christi, Texas. She was robbed of
the chance to celebrate her third birthday on March 23.
Last weekend was without a doubt the most gut-wrenching experience I have yet to face. I watched, through teary eyes, my good friend Richard and his exceptional wife cope with an event that I and many others could barely fathom — the death of their only child for as yet unexplained reasons.
I have never felt so much sorrow for two people. And yet at times they were
the strongest people at the funeral, consoling others, offering thanks,
organizing the ritual with which we bid someone goodbye.
As we sat during the visitation, little Hannah at peace in her open
casket, Richard calmly told me what had happened and I listened,
overwhelmed by the man’s inner strength. The visitation was quiet time
with his daughter, he said, and there was a lot of love in the room.
Hannah battled a fever, recovered, but then regressed to the point where
this vibrant child was lethargic, uncommunicative and unwilling to eat. They
took her to the emergency room on Jan. 27 and were told it looked like a
bladder infection. After a pitiful sleep, the Guerreros contacted their
pediatrician the next day. A bladder infection was unlikely, he said, but he was
too busy to see them.
Hannah stopped breathing in the afternoon on Jan. 28. Richard made it to the
hospital just minutes before his reason for being perished.
I met Richard Guerrero in the summer of 1999. I had just joined the news desk at
the Waco Tribune-Herald and Richard and I seemed to gravitate towards each other
immediately. We shared a love for cheap beer, punk rock, literature, and a
disdain for pompous idiots.
Heather would put up with me whenever Richard and I would reconvene our
endless gab-fests back at his house after our shift ended at midnight. She would
suffer us fools gladly even though her work at Baylor University usually
meant she faced a long day. The Guerreros included me in many plans and for that
I will be forever
thankful.
To see these two good souls dealt such an ugly hand was brutal.
I, of course, lead a charmed life. Death has not stalked my my family and
friends. My Grandpa Tennant died when I was living in England in the mid-1980s
and I still regret not returning to wish him a proper farewell. Grandma Tennant
died a few years later, which was sad as hell, but when someone grows old
gracefully and her body simply sputters to its end, it somehow doesn’t
seem as horrifying. It’s just life.
But Hannah’s death just ain’t right.
Richard and I shook our heads at how many times we’ve done extremely foolish things but luckily woke up the next day. Not Hannah. She didn’t get a chance to live.
Monsignor Miguel Heras acknowledged this in his closing remarks. “We have
time!” he said with unexpected force, as if trying to snap us out of our
navel-gazing lives in which we take many things for granted. Monsignor Heras
said there are choices in life. “You can choose to be
unaffected. You can choose to be affected. You can choose to stay the same. You
can choose to change.”
Monsignor Heras chose “to be affected by this beautiful little girl’s life.”
So do I.
On that overcast Saturday in Corpus Christi, Richard and Heather released
balloons emblazoned with bears. They bid farewell to their cherished
daughter as the balloons floated past the grave of another person who died too
young, the singer Selena.
Goodbye, Hannah. Your brief life has had an impact of which you will
never know.
------ courtesy of the Cochrane Eagle -----
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