Tea Parties With Angels

The True Story of a Remarkable Cape Coral Girl

Story by Francesca Donlan 

Two-and-a-half-year-old Sammantha "Sammi" Rae Huhn pushed aside the clothes hanging in her closet. She turned over a green plastic milk crate, covered it with a white baby blanket lined with pink satin trim, and prepared for a tea party. Every Tuesday and Sunday afternoon her tiny hands filled a small, white ceramic teapot with apple juice. She placed butter cookies on doll-sized plates. Sammi didn't pull up chairs around her tea set because her friends didn't need to sit. Sammi Rae Huhn had tea parties with angels.

Twice a week, for more than three years, she sat cross-legged on the closet floor and waited for her angels, Sarah and Noel, to arrive. Her father, Stan Huhn, smiled at these interventions. Her mother, Stephanie Huhn, cringed. These weren't just any angels - these angels had a history. Angel Sarah drowned in a swimming accident when she was 4 years old and liked sugar on her butter cookies. Noel had spiritual tales to tell. She encouraged Sammi to go to church and told her about meeting Jesus someday. Sammi called Noel her guardian angel. Sammi begged for swimming lessons because of Sarah, and coaxed her family into attending church more often because of Noel. 

"I don't like telling them that I didn't go to church," she told her mother.

The Huhn family, who went to church haphazardly, stepped up the pace once the angels arrived. They went to Old Cutler Presbyterian Church in Miami. Sammi memorized her favorite Bible verse, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." Sammi grew more religious as the angel visits continued. She'd press her hands together in prayer at every meal, and wore a small, gold cross around her neck. 

If her father lost his temper, she would stare at him with her big, brown eyes. "Jesus wouldn't like that," she would tell him. When she was 3, the family flew to Tennessee to celebrate Christmas with an aunt. One chilly afternoon, for a split second, they lost sight of Sammi. But then someone noticed rustling in the life-sized, plastic nativity scene that stood in the back yard. They found Sammi cradling a hollow baby Jesus and wearing the biggest grin on her face. When she got a little older she kept a miniature nativity scene on her dresser in her bedroom all year. 

As the years passed, and the tea parties continued, Stan and Stephanie Huhn didn't doubt for an instant that angels visited their daughter. But the angelic guests didn't interest sister Stevi, who at 2 years older chose Barbies over tea parties. A few times, Stan, at 5-foot-8, would cram into the closet and join his daughter and her angel friends for tea. Sammi had full-blown conversations, including appropriate pauses and moments of laughter. One time, one of the angels told Sammi to tell her father she thought he was nice. While Stan found his daughter's fascination with angels charming, Sammi's mother felt uneasy. Actually more than uneasy - privately, those tea parties scared her.

Stephanie had her reasons. Once she walked into Sammi's bedroom and smelled an overwhelming scent of flowers. She asked Sammi if she knocked over her prized bottle of Salvador Dali perfume.Sammi shook her head no. "That's just the way Sarah smells," she told her mother. Stephanie checked to make sure her perfume bottle was intact, then beelined to the phone and called her mother-in-law, Jean Huhn. Stephanie was spooked.

But stories about sweet-smelling angels didn't faze Sammi's grandmother, a Catholic. Grandmother Jean gave Sammi the precious tea set with the colorful haciendas and flowers painted on the ceramic pieces. "That's a sign the Virgin Mary or angels are near," Jean said. "That little Sammi is going to be our prophet someday."

That's not what Stephanie wanted to hear. Another time Stephanie put 4-year-old Sammi and 6-year-old Stevi in the bathtub while she folded clothes in Sammi's room. Stan was washing dishes in the kitchen. Suddenly, Stephanie heard a lyrical-sounding woman's voice."Yes, Stevi," the voice said. The girls heard it, too."I'm not talking to you, Mom," Stevi yelled back. Stan came flying into Sammi's room.

"Did you hear that?" he asked Stephanie."Yes," Stephanie said. "I think it came from the closet. "Suddenly the room filled with the smell of roses. The hair on the back of Stephanie's neck stood up.

Stephanie had worried about Sammi since her daughter first burst into the world in an emergency Caesarean section because she was in a breech position. Her tiny hips were dislocated and she wore leg braces for two months. Something nagged at Stephanie from the very beginning. She felt like her fragile daughter wasn't going to be around long. At Sammi's first birthday party, Stephanie leaned over to her sister-in-law. "I'm just thankful to have had her for the entire year," she said. 

And when the angels started arriving for tea parties, Stephanie's personal fears worsened. She didn't think it was normal that a 3-year-old spoke to angels and talked about meeting Jesus. Her daughter prayed for so many people. She wore that little gold cross - given to her by Grandmother Jean - around her neck. The same fears didn't plague her about Stevi. There was just something different about Sammi. Sammi's own words didn't help. She would look at her mother with her big, brown eyes and talk in her little girl, Minnie Mouse voice. She told her mother to think about the future. "Mommy, you should have another baby because I'm not always going to be here for you," Sammi said. Anxiety rippled through Stephanie's body.

When Sammi turned 4, the visits with angels dwindled to once a week. Sarah and Noel stopped coming after Sammi turned 5. The tea parties with angels faded away, but that didn't calm Stephanie's fears. An urgency to appreciate every minute with Sammi gripped Stephanie. She held her daughter's hand and thought, "Please stay little for mommy." Every night Stephanie lay in bed, closed her eyes and prayed. "Please let my children outlive me." And she said an extra prayer for her youngest daughter. "Don't take Sammi just yet." Those prayers multiplied, and the years passed without a single incident. No accidents, no illnesses - not one trip to the hospital. 

On Sammi's 11th birthday - March 10, 2003 - she celebrated at a make-it-yourself pottery store in Fort Myers. Stephanie watched as her daughter brushed red paint on the inside of her hand and pressed it against a white ceramic plate. Peace washed over Stephanie's body. "You didn't take her from me," Stephanie thought. She stared at her daughter's sturdy handprint. "We made it." 

And Stephanie found a serenity that hadn't existed when she thought about the future with her daughter.

That peace of mind lasted exactly 11 months.

Chapter Two:  The Duchess 

Sammi Huhn, 11, wore jeans, a pink cotton T-shirt, and her brown hair in two French braids to the Trafalgar Middle School Valentine's Dance. She streamed into the cafeteria with hundreds of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Sammi wished her boyfriend of five months, Kenneth Michael "Mikey" Linquist, could be there, but poor grades got him in trouble. Sammi plunked down $3 for a ticket and picked up a ballot. All of the students at the biggest middle school in Lee County got to vote for their favorite Valentine couple. 

The sixth-graders voted for a duke and duchess, the seventh-graders for a prince and princess while the eighth-graders selected a king and queen. Keely Dunlap, one of Sammi's best friends, scribbled Sammi and Mikey's names on a piece of paper. Other friends did the same. By 4 p.m., Sammi's braids bounced as she danced to Top 40 hits and salsa music. Word spread among the sixth-graders that Sammi and Mikey had a shot at the crown. At 4:45 p.m. assistant principal Donnie Hopper, also the dance DJ, flipped off the music for the royalty announcement. As the crowd fell silent, a dance committee member began to announce the winners. She could barely push out the words "Sammi and Mikey" before the entire cafeteria shook with sixth-grade screams.

Sammi screamed, too. Her hands flew up to her face. She resisted going onstage without Mikey, but the kids clapped and cheered. Wearing a purple tiara, Sammi stood alone, a surprised and smiling duchess without her duke. The screams still rang in Hopper's head when he played "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera for the chosen royalty. School principal Angela Prewitt watched Sammi dance with her friends. She noticed how radiant she looked. And that's exactly how she appeared to her father when he picked her up after the dance at 6 p.m. Sammi bounded toward him with her crown on. "I want to spend the night at Keely's house," Sammi said.That night Kayleen Dunlap grinned as her daughter Keely, Sammi, and their friend, Taylor Porter, danced throughout her Cape Coral home. They talked and giggled until they couldn't keep their eyes open.

Early Saturday morning Keely pushed cinnamon rolls into the oven. A sleepy Sammi padded into the kitchen wearing pajamas and her purple tiara. She took her crown off only once that weekend - when she jumped and flipped on Keely's backyard trampoline. The girls had so much fun that Friday night turned into Saturday night. Kayleen took them to Blockbuster Video early Saturday evening. As they stepped outside the store, Sammi turned to Keely. "Do you think there's something wrong with me that I'm so happy all the time?"  Keely grinned and her mother reassured Sammi that her cheerfulness was wonderful. 

They picked up takeout and Kayleen drove the trio to the Cape Coral Yacht Club, where they boarded Southern Comfort, the Dunlaps' 41-foot yacht. The moored boat rocked lightly as they ate Philly cheese steak sandwiches under the stars. The girls toasted each other with Orange Crush sodas.  "Let's keep these bottles forever," Keely said. Later Saturday evening, Sammi called her friend, Amanda Gunning, to cancel plans to go to teen night. She was having too much fun to go to the roller rink-turned-disco club for middle school students in North Fort Myers. Sammi gushed over the phone. She was really excited about her crown, but was starting to feel sick. "I have a tummy ache," she said. "But I think it's because I ate too much."

On Sunday morning Sammi called her parents from Keely's house. She wanted to come home and watch home movies - an unusual request from their social butterfly. Her father picked her up at noon. The two of them stretched out in front of the TV and put in a Huhn video. They watched 5-year-old Stevi admit to stealing bubble gum from Target while 3-year-old Sammi chomped gum and giggled. They watched the sisters dance in front of a PBS ballet on TV wearing pink tutus and long, hot pink feather boas.

Sunday night, her mother, Stephanie Huhn, drove Sammi, Stevi and Stevi's best friend, Mary Hernandez, to Pizza Hut in Cape Coral. They had wanted to play miniature golf but Sammi and Mary didn't feel well. Before they pulled out of the parking lot, Stephanie plucked Mary's camera from the back seat and took some pictures. She took a shot of Mary and Sammi in the back seat, and another of Mary and Stevi. On President's Day, Monday, Feb. 16, Sammi's stomach still hurt, but she had an appetite. At 6 a.m. Tuesday, Sammi woke up in pain. She clutched her stomach because of cramps and diarrhea. She repeatedly threw up. Stephanie drew Sammi a bath, then brushed her hair and teeth. She put a heating pad on her stomach and gave her Gatorade.

That afternoon, while Stephanie napped on the family room couch across from her daughter, Sammi called Aunt Katie Corradino in Miami. She had never called long distance without permission before. Sammi loved her mother's younger sister, her uncle Darrel, and cousins Coby, 4, and Cali, 1."What are you doing calling me?" Aunt Katie said. "I don't feel so good," Sammi said. "When am I going to feel better?" By Tuesday night she couldn't hold down any food or drink. Stephanie and Sammi watched a Peter Cottontail Easter video on Sammi's bed. Stephanie turned off the video when her daughter got sleepy. But Sammi wasn't ready to close her eyes.

"Are you afraid to die?" Sammi asked her mother. "Gosh no," Stephanie said. "What do you think heaven is like?" she asked her mother. "I think you go to heaven and be with loved ones," Stephanie said. "Yeah, I picture it as a big party, and we're all together as a family," Sammi said. As Sammi fell asleep next to her mother, years of anxiety crept back into Stephanie's soul: "Why is she asking about heaven?"

By Wednesday, Feb. 18, Sammi could barely walk. She vomited everything in her system. At 10 a.m., Stan carried Sammi into Cape Coral Physicians Primary Care of Southwest Florida to see her pediatrician, Dr. Eleanor Blitzer. Feverish kids packed the office complaining of flu symptoms. Blitzer examined Sammi. She didn't have a sore throat or fever, but her pulse raced. Nothing about her seemed much different from the other kids in the waiting room, Blitzer thought. The pediatrician suggested rehydrating Sammi intravenously. Sammi hated the idea. The doctor agreed to let Sammi drink fluids at home and return if she didn't improve. Four hours later, Stan carried his 95-pound daughter back into the pediatrician's office. Her brown eyes were black; her olive skin turned yellow. Her forearms and hands were cool. She was too tired to talk much. "She might be going into shock," Blitzer said. 

Stephanie answered the phone on the first ring in her office at Beazer Homes in Gateway around 3 p.m. "They're going to take her in an ambulance to the children's hospital to rehydrate her," Stan said. Her mind began to spin. "Make sure to go in the ambulance with her," she said. She hung up the phone and reached for her purse. Blood rushed from her face. She stood up and leaned against the copy machine. She stared at friend and colleague Star Allen. "My kid has never gone to the hospital. "Tears spilled down her face."It's going to be all right," Star said. "She'll be Ok."

"No, this is it," Stephanie said as she reached for the office door. A familiar dread filled her heart. 

"He's taking her now," she thought. "He's got his chance. This is going to get worse."

Chapter three - Life support 

Sammi Huhn's feet and hands felt ice-cold. An IV pumped fluid into her veins as she lay in her hospital bed. Stephanie and Stan Huhn sat beside their daughter's bed in Room 5 of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers. Sammi arrived by ambulance a few hours earlier with what appeared to be a severe stomach virus. The Huhns didn't understand what happened to their 11-year-old daughter.

Five days before she had been crowned duchess of her Valentine's Dance. Four days earlier she bounced on a friend's trampoline. "Can I please have a Coke?" Sammi asked. "I'm so thirsty." But Stan and Stephanie couldn't get their daughter a Coke because she violently threw up everything in her system. Dr. Roberto Monge, a pediatric intensive care physician, reviewed Sammi's medical chart about 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 18. Monge set up a series of blood and urine tests. Sammi's grandmother, Jean Huhn, left her job as an X-ray technician and arrived to check on her beloved granddaughter. The serenity and radiance on Sammi's face surprised Jean. She couldn't stop staring at her granddaughter. "You look so beautiful," she thought. "So peaceful."

The nurses wanted to take Sammi to get an X-ray. Jean took off the tiny gold cross around Sammi's neck and draped it around her own neck for safekeeping. She had given her the special cross when Sammi was a newborn. "I love you Mima," she told her grandmother. "I love you, too," Jean said. And then she gave her a kiss and left to care for Sammi's 13-year-old sister, Stevi. Stephanie and Sammi called Stevi at 8 p.m. Sammi wanted her sister to collect her tiny teddy bear named Snuggles, her baby blanket with the pink satin trim and her squishy pillow from her bed. "I love you, Sissy," Sammi said. "You're my best Sissy.""I love you, too," Stevi told Sammi. After joking with Sammi and talking to the nurses about surfing, her dad left after midnight to care for Stevi. Stan assumed she would be discharged the next day."You're doing a kick-ass job," he said, kissing her goodbye. Stan and Stephanie couldn't remember their daughter ever being so brave.

By 4 a.m., Monge stood by Sammi's bed wearing green scrubs and a frown. He had worked with critically ill children for more than 20 years. "She is in a shock state and it's getting worse," he thought. Her heart, vascular system and blood pressure were all weakening. They needed to locate whatever infection was ravaging her body. Conclusive tests to isolate an infection take 24 to 48 hours, and Sammi's condition worsened by the hour.

"She looks so frail," Stephanie thought as she watched her daughter, who was dwarfed by a mountain of medical equipment. "Like a little old lady." Monge had to take a more aggressive approach. At 4:30 a.m. he told Stephanie they must sedate Sammi to read her vital signs more accurately. Sammi was scared and disoriented as they prepared to put a tube in her chest. "Mom," she called out. "Mom." Stephanie fought back the fear. She refused to shed one tear in front of her daughter. "You're going to wake up and everything will be fine," she said. 

As soon as she kissed her daughter and watched them prepare to put the tube into her chest, Stephanie's body began to shake. All of the anxiety and terror about Sammi that had plagued Stephanie in earlier years returned with a vengeance. She left Sammi's hospital room. Inside the room, Monge made a drastic decision. Sammi's weakening body couldn't withstand the procedure. He needed to put her on voluntary life support. A ventilator would breathe for her while she remained sedated. He wanted her body to rest so it could start fighting back. 

At 6 a.m. Monge gave Stephanie the news. Her mind reeled. All she heard were muddled sounds until the words "life support" screamed at her. "Are you friggin' kidding me?" she said. Stephanie could barely dial her home number. "This is it," she thought. Tears drenched her face. "I knew it was going to happen. "She reached Stan on the second ring. "She's on life support and they don't know what's wrong with her," she said, sobbing. "No one knows what's going on."

Stephanie and Stan sat next to their daughter all day. They understood uncertainty. During their 14 years of marriage they thought they had lived through the worst of it. Hurricane Andrew slammed into their Miami apartment in 1992 and destroyed everything they owned. In December 2000, six months after they moved from Miami to Cape Coral, their fireplace exploded. More than 25 percent of Stan's body was burned. He spent a week in the intensive care unit and months in rehabilitation. But withstanding a hurricane and enduring skin grafts were nothing compared to the sheer terror of possibly losing their child. 

Stephanie walked to the vending machines and pulled out a Coke. She carried it back to Sammi's room and took a sip. She kissed her youngest daughter and let Coke droplets fall on Sammi's cold, chapped lips. She smelled Sammi's breath and felt the Vaseline on her lips."I just want her to taste it," Stephanie said. "She's so thirsty." Stephanie left around 6 p.m. to wash up and try to rest at the nearby Ronald McDonald House. Alone in her room, she couldn't stop crying. In the shower, she prayed and begged for God to help. She saw images of Sammi's funeral flickering through her mind like a movie. "What is wrong with my daughter?" she cried out to God.

While Stephanie showered, relatives streamed into the hospital. Stephanie's sister, Katie Corradino, arrived from Miami. Stephanie's mother, Nancy Hoster, stepped off her flight from Nashville. Stephanie's father, Ray Lopez, and his wife, Daisy, drove from their home near Fort Lauderdale.As Sammi lay unconscious, phones began buzzing and e-mails flying as prayer lines and support spread out. An Alcoholics Anonymous group in Costa Rica paused for Sammi; an aunt riding a tour bus in Canada got word and prayed for Sammi; churches, schools, neighbors and friends prayed for Sammi, too. 

The family set up camp with pillows and blankets in the hospital visitors room.Monge asked to speak to Stan and Stephanie at 11 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19.Stephanie walked down the hall toward the doctor, who stood beside Sammi's hospital bed. She saw the sheet pulled up slightly over Sammi's chin. Her mind went blank; her knees buckled. She fainted. Stan froze. He looked at his daughter on the bed and his wife on the floor. Nurses rushed in. Monge leaned down next to Stephanie and gently touched her arm.

"We know what's wrong with Sammantha," he said.

Chapter Four - Through the clouds

Stephanie Huhn looked up at Dr. Roberto Monge. "We know what's wrong with your daughter," he said. Stephanie had fainted earlier beside her daughter's hospital bed. Eleven-year-old Sammi Huhn was on life support at the Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida at HealthPark Medical Center in south Fort Myers after appearing to have a stomach virus. Her parents waited two agonizing days for conclusive lab results. The same germ that causes strep entered Sammi's bloodstream and raged through her body, he said. She had severe invasive group A streptococcal disease.

They had a clear plan of action. Stephanie could rest. Her head and knees throbbed. She hadn't slept in four days. A nurse unlocked an empty, darkened teen room on the pediatric intensive care floor. Stephanie lay on a green leather couch beside a pool table with ice on her head and   know you and Sammi have a little something going on," she said to God. "So please take over. I'm giving you all of my worries. Give me some kind of peace. This weight on my chest, it's crushing me. I can hardly breathe." And suddenly Stephanie felt a presence wrap itself around her body. She sank into a tranquil embrace and closed her eyes.

"She's a very, very sick girl," the doctor told her. "This is a very rare form of strep."

While Stephanie slept, her mother, Nancy Hoster from Nashville, Tenn., arrived at the hospital and wanted to see her granddaughter."Just prepare yourself," said Stan, her son-in-law. "She doesn't look like herself."The fluids flowing into Sammi's body to keep her organs functioning leaked out of her vessels and into her soft tissue. Her face was so bloated that she was unrecognizable. Nancy walked in and sank to her knees beside her granddaughter's bed. She couldn't believe the same sunny child who spent summers baking cookies and chasing lightning bugs was fighting for her life."You cannot do this Sammi," she said. "You have to get up and out of here. We have so much we have to do."

Monge looked into Sammi's room. He had slept two hours in the past three days. Nurses lined up candy bars so he would eat. He intended to fight for Sammi the same way he would for his own three children.Despite the doctor's determination, Sammi's heart didn't have the power to pump. The pressure from the leakage blocked the blood moving to the heart. Her stomach filled with fluids.By 8 a.m. Friday Monge thought he had lost the battle.He walked to the visitors room."Chances look slim," he said. It took a few minutes for Stan, Stephanie and Grandmother Nancy to understand what he meant."Is there a 1 percent chance, a 2 percent chance?" Stephanie asked. "Is there a miracle?""That's what it would have to be," he said.

More friends and family arrived and gathered in the visitors room at the hospital. Stephanie's brother, Mickey Lopez, and his wife, Kelly, arrived and hugged the others. Doctors streamed into Sammi's room: an infectious disease doctor, a pediatric surgeon and a pediatric cardiologist. Only one chance remained: Transfer her to Miami Children's Hospital and its sophisticated life support machine.

At 9:30 a.m. Fort Myers pediatric cardiologist Dr. Sam Edwards called Miami Children's Hospital and got the green light to transport Sammi.Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Syed Ali, a pediatric intensive care physician conducting routine rounds at Miami Children's Hospital, got paged. An hour later he boarded a jet with nurse Vanessa Buchanan and paramedic Rene Bascoy. They arrived at the south Fort Myers hospital around 1 p.m. The Miami team relieved Monge and tried to stabilize Sammi for an hour by injecting maximum antibiotics and dehydrating fluids into her body. Heaps of used syringes piled up around their ankles.

"She is not going to make this trip to Miami on a ventilator," Ali told Monge. "She will not survive." When Sammi was placed on life support, her organs were functioning and the ventilator was breathing for her. Now her organs were failing and they didn't have the equipment to support them.Ali knew he had to call in the big guns. Sammi needed the Miami miracle machine: the ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine. The transportable lung and heart machine supports those organs while the body fights off its infection.He reached Dr. Redmond Burke, chief of pediatric cardiovascular surgery and a member of an elite cardiac airborne team at Miami Children's."It's a desperate situation," Ali said."We'll get there as soon as we can," Burke said.

Ali let out a huge sigh of relief. He sent the pilots waiting at Page Field back to Miami to collect the cardiac team."We just need to keep her alive until they get there," Ali said to his team.In the visitors room, trays of meat and cheese sat uneaten. Stephanie tried to force down a milkshake and got sick. About 10 p.m. Drs. Burke, Jorge Ojito and Frank Alonso burst through the doors of the intensive care unit. "It's like right out of `The Right Stuff' or `Armageddon,' " Stan said to his wife as the three men in green scrubs marched down the hall. 

The Huhn family needed a superhero and Burke fit the bill. He made a living fighting the odds. Captain of his rugby team at Stanford University and a graduate of Harvard Medical School, Burke came to win. This was the team's 14th airborne mission. About once a month they responded to a remote rescue. About half of the patients survived after Burke and his team arrived on the scene. The Huhn family leapt to their feet."They're coming to save a little girl," Grandmother Nancy said. "Please save our Sammi." The men darted into Sammi's room carrying the portable heart and lung machine. Burke waded through the sea of syringes to reach Sammi.  

Most children stabilized immediately after being hooked up to their machine, but not Sammi. She was one of the sickest children Burke had seen in his 20-year career. The three men looked at each other. It was a crapshoot."There's a 2 percent chance she would make the flight alive," Burke told Stan.Burke folded his hands together and closed his eyes."We're going to take her," he said. He opened his eyes. "Let's do this."

The cardiac team rushed Sammi by ambulance to Page Field, boarded the jet and crammed in beside the medical equipment. There wasn't room for any family members.It took off at 1:05 a.m.Turbulence shook the jet on the outside. Sammi's vital signs shook them up on the inside. Her blood pressure rose and fell. Used syringes littered the floor. While Sammi flew over south Florida, her family sped on Interstate 75 toward Miami Children's Hospital.

Sammi's grandfather, Ray Lopez, drove across Alligator Alley. His wife, Daisy, sat beside him. Aunt Katie prayed in the back seat. Half a dozen cars carrying Stephanie, Stan and other family and friends raced behind Ray. He had to arrive at the hospital first. Everyone knew Sammi might not make the trip alive except his daughter. Stephanie had been packing up at the hospital when Dr. Burke explained Sammi's slim odds to Stan. Ray didn't want Stephanie facing that news without him. While he drove, Daisy called the hospital on her cell phone. No one gave her any information. She called again and again. Shortly after 3 a.m. a nurse finally answered her question.

"She's alive," Daisy said. "She landed and she's alive."

Chapter Five- Sammi's Blessings

A jet carrying 11-year-old Sammi Huhn landed at Miami International Airport around 3 a.m. An ambulance with red lights blazing waited to rush her to Miami Children's Hospital.Her family raced along Interstate 75 from Fort Myers to Miami and arrived at the hospital about 5:30 a.m.

Sammantha "Sammi" Huhn had a strep infection racing through her bloodstream and destroying her organs. An elite cardiac team from Miami flew to Fort Myers by jet, put her on an advanced lung and heart machine, and flew her back to Miami.The next day, Sunday, Feb. 22, Sammi's body started to stabilize. By Monday her vital signs improved. Fluids began to drain from her bloated body.The family joined hands and prayed in a circle led by Stephanie Huhn's sister Katie. Sammi's aunt never let one tear roll down her face. She refused to let her sister lose hope, either. On Tuesday, Feb. 24, Sammi's beloved uncle, Mickey Lopez, had to leave. After playing nine years in the minors, he had a shot at a Major League Baseball spring training camp with the Seattle Mariners. 

As Mickey prepared to leave, Sammi began to fail."I didn't want to tell Mickey," said his wife, Kelly. "This was a chance of a lifetime." By Tuesday afternoon hope was fading. Sammi's pupils appeared sluggish, indicating brain damage. By Wednesday, Stan and Stephanie Huhn knew their daughter wouldn't make it.The rain told them. Unlike the series of sunny days since Sammi got sick, Wednesday was gray and raining -- a constant drizzle.Stan walked to the hospital parking lot wearing his Walkman. Every song on the mellow "chill-out" compilation stung his heart. Unknown to Stan, his stepfather-in-law, Sam Hoster, followed him. He put his hand on his shoulder."Are you OK?" Sam asked.Stan turned around, fell against Sam's chest and wept. The rain poured down.

Sam understood pain. He earned two Purple Hearts in the Army during the Vietnam War. On Feb. 21, 1969, his seven-person squad was attacked. Only two survived.Four hours after hugging Stan in the parking lot, Sam watched another loved one crumble. Outside her daughter Katie's home in Miami, Sam's wife fell to her knees. Sam watched from the kitchen window as grandmother Nancy reached into the darkened skies and yelled out to God for a miracle.

"Make it not so," she screamed into the sky, her arms outstretched, her knees digging into the grass. "Please help us." Sam watched Nancy for a few minutes, and then walked toward her and rocked his grieving wife.

Family members weren't the only ones grieving. Monica Hearn, a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit at Miami Children's Hospital, knew the Huhn family. She grew up with them. Hearn dreaded the day a familiar child would be brought into her intensive care unit. It finally happened.Hearn washed Sammi, she played salsa music and cared for her like she was her own. On that particular Wednesday, Hearn cried and prayed beside her bed.She felt an inexplicable presence in the room that day. It was as if Sammi was waiting for her family to tell her it was OK to die.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Stephanie visited Sammi. Her daughter's eyes were wide open, but Stephanie couldn't see her inside those dulled pupils. She kissed her daughter goodbye.Aunt Katie and 13-year-old Stevi Huhn went to see "50 First Dates" at the movie theater.It was the first time Stevi talked about her sister's illness."I will be OK if God decides to take Sammi," Stevi said. "I think I will be fine with that if she goes to heaven."

By that evening, Dr. Jack Wolfsdorf, medical director of the critical care medicine department, told the family what some of them already knew."Her little soul has left us," he said.Stephanie looked at her sister, Katie, who suddenly couldn't breathe. Katie grabbed her stomach as if someone had kicked her. As soon as Stephanie saw her sister gasping for air, she knew Sammi was really gone. The family clung to each other and cried.Sammi's uncle, Mickey Lopez, was having lunch at a Fuddruckers fast-food restaurant in Arizona when his cell phone rang. His wife, Kelly, told him his niece died. The baseball player sat alone in a booth and cried. He started writing Sammi a thank-you letter for being in his life. The page became blurred, blue ink.

On Wednesday night, Stephanie had a dream. Sammi wore a white gown. A white ribbon fluttered through her long brown hair. She ran through plush green grass and waved at Stephanie. She ran away, turned, smiled and waved. She seemed very happy. Stephanie woke up Thursday morning and didn't want to go back to the hospital.

On Thursday afternoon, Feb. 26, three doctors in the pediatric intensive care unit spoke to Stan in a small, white conference room.Sammi's brain scan had flatlined. There was no brain activity. Her organs were so damaged that she couldn't donate any of them.Stan sat numbly in a metal fold-up chair across from the doctors. They wanted to disconnect her from life support and make her death official.

Stephanie was at her sister's home. She couldn't return to the hospital. She couldn't watch her daughter's last breath. Stan walked past his father-in-law, stepfather, mother and brother."OK, guys, we're getting ready to cut her off," he said. "I'm going now."He kept walking toward Sammi's room. He was prepared to do it alone.His stepfather-in-law, Sam Hoster, and his mother, Jean Huhn, followed behind.Stan stood at the top of his 11-year-old's bed, cradled her head and cried. He smelled her hair, and noticed how the sun poured in through the window and onto his daughter. He heard birds singing. The nurse wanted to shut the blinds."Keep them open," Stan said.

Sammi's body was hooked up to dozens of machines. Wolfsdorf tried to explain the final procedure, but no one could concentrate. The nurse carefully crimped her bloodline.Stan's mother, Jean, stood on a stool and placed both hands on Sammi's arm. Sam held Sammi's right hand and watched the heart rate monitor. It fell, and stopped, fell and stopped. It flatlined in less than three minutes.

Sammantha Rae Huhn died at 4:44 p.m. of septic shock and a bacterial infection.Stan cut a lock of her soft brown hair and tied a green ribbon around it. A nurse placed Sammi's hand in plaster so her family could remember the gentle curves. Just 11 months ago, the same soft hand made a red handprint on a white ceramic plate at a make-it-yourself pottery store during her 11th birthday party.

Stan placed the bright yellow plaster mold and the lock of hair in a keepsake cardboard box.Stephanie was standing outside, beside her sister Katie's house, when her cell phone rang. She heard Stan speak and slumped on the grass."I want my baby," she cried.Katie and her husband, Darrel, circled around her and held her. Kelly and Stevi heard Stephanie's cries and fell into the circle. They wrapped themselves in a blanket of grief.

Sammi's grandfather, Ray Lopez, couldn't leave Miami Children's Hospital right away. Finally at 7:30 p.m. he steered his car onto I-75 toward Broward County. His wipers swished back and forth in the rain. He spotted a car trying to move into his lane. He saw its blinker, and slowed to let the car merge.The rain thundered down and Ray's headlights illuminated the car's license plate. The tag letters read "RIP." The grandfather, who had grown up in the toughest parts of New York City, began to cry."Sammi's all right," he thought. "She's resting in peace."

Chapter Six - Funeral In Pink

By early Thursday afternoon, Feb. 26, word reached Trafalgar Middle School in Cape Coral that Sammi Huhn had passed away.

The shock of Sammi's death stung Angela Pruitt, principal. She ached for the family. She knew Sammi and had her own 11-year-old child.She had been at the helm of a school with more than 1,400 students for only two weeks. If she didn't mobilize counselors immediately, she faced a crisis of her own. Exactly 14 days earlier, Sammi had been crowned duchess of the Valentine's Dance. She stood in the cafeteria wearing a purple tiara while her fellow sixth-graders cheered and screamed.

By 2 p.m Thursday, six grief counselors sat in the Trafalgar Middle School library, ready to comfort heartbroken students.Sixth-graders Rachel Doverspike, Keely Dunlap and Taylor Porter moved in a stream of 60 to 70 sixth-graders toward the library. They couldn't stop crying. Sammi's boyfriend, Kenneth Michael "Mikey" Linquist, sat in a school bus returning from a field trip to J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel. Angela waited for the bus to arrive. When the doors opened, she climbed the stairs and asked for Mikey.The apprehensive boy stepped off the bus. While Angela gave him the terrible news, a sixth-grade teacher told the rest of the students on the bus. 

Mikey went straight to the library to talk to a counselor. Angela dialed phone numbers for almost two dozen students too distraught to explain why they wanted their parents to pick them up. Kayleen Dunlap was just one of many parents who arrived early to collect their children. That night, Keely cradled a photo of Sammi and cried herself to sleep. The counselors stayed on campus throughout Friday as well. Many sixth-grade students didn't return to school that day. On Saturday, the Huhn family drove from Miami to their Cape Coral home. Sister Stevi had a dream that night. She and Sammi sat in a teachers lounge holding stuffed animals.

"I love you," Sammi told her big sister. Stevi woke up with a smile. "I was happy to see her again," Stevi said.

On Sunday, Sammi's mother, Stephanie, sat at Sammi's desk in her room. A piece of paper caught her eye. She picked it up. Scribbled on lined paper were these words:"How I wish to go to the King's Festival. More than jewels. More than gold. More than life. I wish more than anything to go to that big festival in the sky. How I wish to be with my King. I wish. I wish. I wish."

Stephanie was shaken and in awe. She walked out of her daughter's bedroom. On Sunday evening, pastor Bruce Schreiber sat in his small church office considering his own challenges. Pastor Bruce had worked as an associate pastor at First Christian Church in Cape Coral for two years after more than 20 years as a youth pastor at churches throughout Florida. He had to prepare the small nondenominational Cape Coral church of 325 for a funeral of unprecedented size. Schreiber had never led a large funeral service. He struggled to find the right words for his sermon.

"There are no perfect answers when an 11-year-old gets sick and dies," he thought. "You just want to fix it, and put a nice neat bow on it. Her body's going to the ground. Life is not supposed to be like that."

Like Angela, Pastor Bruce was the parent of an 11-year-old - a daughter just like Sammi. He finally finished writing his sermon at 2:30 a.m. Monday. Flowers began pouring into the church at 9 a.m. Anxiety still wracked Pastor Bruce. Over the loudspeakers inside the church, small children's voices sang out "Jesus Loves Me." He walked toward his office, closed his door, covered his face with his hands and cried. Pastor Bruce wiped his eyes. He asked God for strength and confidence. People began to arrive for the service around noon. Fifteen to 20 volunteers parked cars, which overflowed into the street and onto neighboring lots. By 1 p.m., people packed the church. They squeezed into pews and spilled out into the sides of the church. So many flowers covered the stage that church workers created a path in front of Sammi's pink casket. Posters, letters and photos lined the walls. Sammi's healthy, adolescent face filled a huge screen above the stage.

As the congregation waited, Sammi's uncle, Mickey Lopez, and other family and friends were tangled in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Interstate 75.At 1:30, Schreiber told the congregation to be patient. Sammi's parents, Stephanie and Stan, sat in the front pew. Almost all of the Huhn family and friends were dressed in pink. Stephanie wore a hot pink sweat suit and one of Sammi's pink glitter T-shirts. Sammi wore a matching light pink sweat suit inside her coffin. Andrew Ridings, 14, one of Stevi's best friends, wore a pink glitter belt and a pink tie. He sat behind Stevi and clutched Kleenex. Mikey sat with other sixth-grade friends. Many children sobbed; they couldn't stop; they couldn't catch their breath. Stan was stunned by the crowd. He guessed 1,000 people came - and he didn't know many of them. "I've never ever seen anything like this in my life," he said to Stephanie. "She was just a kid in the neighborhood and she got rock-star status. "Finally, everyone arrived and the funeral began one hour late. 

A slide show of Sammi's life beginning with Stephanie's pregnancy illuminated a large screen while Christina Aguilera's song "Beautiful" played. Schreiber told the children not to feel alone. He told the congregation to ask God for direction. "God knows and understands what you are going through," he said. He offered them Psalm 34:18. "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."Stan mustered the courage to speak to the crowd about his daughter.

"I didn't want her to get lost as a symbolic thing," he said. "We're not just speaking of angels because she's our little girl. Whether you believe in them or not there's something a lot bigger than this. Something bigger and greater than what's happening."

Stan called the outpouring of love for his child miraculous. "Listen to your kids," he said. "Take the time to ask your kid what they are doing. Remember the next time you are yelling at your child. It may be the last thing you say to them." 

After the service, 200 pink balloons sailed toward heaven. Children held pink carnations. Many wore pink ribbons around their wrists. Ten police cars rerouted the funeral procession past Trafalgar Middle School. As the cars snaked by the school, 120 sixth-grade students, many wearing pink, lined up in the front of the school. They lowered the flag. The entire school had a moment of silence. Most people didn't stay for Sammi's burial. Stephanie and most of her family left before they lowered her into the ground. But Stan stayed, and just like in the hospital room, Sam Hoster and Grandmother Jean stayed. Stan grabbed some dirt and threw it in her grave. He was numb by then. The Huhns' Cape Coral home was filled with friends and family.

Stephanie felt like she was moving through a dream. Her 14-year-old daughter worried about her mother.

"Please still be the same fun mom," Stevi said. "Don't turn into one of those moms who locks herself up in their bedroom and takes lots of pills."Stephanie gave her daughter a tired hug."It's OK, Mom," Stevi said. "She's with her angel friends now."

Chapter seven - AN EPILOGUE

Sammantha Rae Huhn died Feb. 26 at the age of 11 of a very rare strep infection.

"When people ask me about my family I say I have two daughters," Stephanie Huhn said. "One is here and one is in heaven."

Since Sammi's death, the Huhn family endures the unpredictable waves of grief. Sometimes they crash over them when they least expect it.Three months after Sammi died, Stephanie couldn't get out of bed for two days. A curt e-mail welcomed her back to work. Personnel wanted to know who authorized Stephanie's days off.How do you plan for grief? How do you begin to explain it?It took Stephanie a month to garner the strength to visit Sammi's grave. Seven months after her death, there still isn't a headstone because the family can't afford one. It's a grave heaped with love. Visitors still arrive at Sammi's Cape Coral grave site carrying notes, balloons, ceramic angels, stuffed animals and flowers.

At the Huhn home, Stan and Stephanie stack up medical bills from the Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida and Miami Children's Hospital. Medical expenses soar past $1.4 million, and that doesn't include the bill for Sammi's jet flight between hospitals. Fortunately, their insurance covers 90 percent. But how do they pay the rest? They can't even think about it.But they can ponder all the wonderful things they learned about their daughter in the outpouring of letters sent to them. 

One letter described Sammi's kindness to a neighbor kindergartner. Sammi made sure the 5-year-old got on the school bus and made it home safely. A 12-year-old girl across the street created a shrine to Sammi in her closet.The Huhn family tries to move forward. On Sammi's 12th birthday in March, they planted a pink rosebush in their front yard and had a birthday cake. They attended a ceremony at Trafalgar Middle school. Students and teachers planted a magnolia tree in Sammi's honor.

Grandmother Jean Huhn visits Sammi's grave site every week. She and Sammi were roommates fortwo years while Jean was getting divorced in 2000. "I'm still cleaning your room, Sammi," her grandmother muses out loud as she arranges flowers beside her graveside.She grapples with her granddaughter's death."I just had a dream a couple of nights ago about Sammi," she said. "My mom who passed away was there. Sammi told me, 'You can't come now. It's not your time to come yet. You can't come.' "Sammi's Aunt Katie also carries a heavy heart."I just feel like someone is compressing my chest in," she said. "I wanted an ending, but I didn't get the ending I wanted or anyone else wanted. But Sammi's done with the pain, done with this seesaw of medical attention."Katie's 4-year-old son, Coby Corradino, drew a rainbow for Sammi."I want her to come out of heaven so she can see what I drew for her," Coby said.

Sammi's uncle, Mickey Lopez, keeps his eye toward heaven when he's on the baseball field. When Sammi was sick, he couldn't hit the ball. His first 13 times at bat during spring training with the Seattle Mariners, he couldn't get on base. Since she died, he looks toward the clouds and hits them out of the park. "I put her initials in my hat," he said. He draws Sammi's initials in the clay near second base. "I look at my hat, put it back on, and go out in the field." This month, Mickey got called up to the Seattle Mariners after 10 years of trying. "She was up there nudging God on the shoulder - can you give my uncle a shot?" He wishes she could have seen him make it to the big leagues. "But she can still see me," he said. "She's my guardian angel."

Many at the children's hospitals in Fort Myers and Miami continue to think about Sammi. Dr. Syed Ali, a pediatric intensive care specialist in Miami who cared for Sammi, said: "There was no stone unturned to help her. Very few people have that equipment and that kind of medical care." Sammi's passing saddens Dr. Roberto Monge, a pediatric intensivist at the Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida."It doesn't matter how much we tried to help her and save her, we couldn't do it," he said. "It makes me once again realize how small we are. The only consolation in her case is maybe there was a design for her on a higher level. I find some consolation thinking there is a higher power who dictates these things."

When Sammi's friend Keely Dunlap, 12, goes by the cemetery, she closes her eyes every time. Rachel Doverspike, 12, wears pink on the 26th of every month commemorating the day Sammi died. Andrew Ridings, 14, loops his pink glitter belt around his jeans, and not one kid makes fun of him. Sammi's boyfriend, Mikey, wore the pink ribbon he got at her funeral for months until it turned green and broke. He slept with her photo under his pillow until August. Now, he carries her picture in his clear homework folder.

Sammi's bedroom remains unchanged. Hurricane Charley rattled the Huhn house, toppling trees and flooding the front of the home, but Sammi's room is still pink and peaceful. Her big pink angel wings hang above her bed and her white bedspread is clean and smooth. Sometimes her sister, Stevi, and her sister's best friend, Mary Hernandez, fall asleep on Sammi's bed. "I think it's more comforting," Mary said. "Her smell is still there."

The ceramic tea set sits in the kitchen pantry. "It gives us some solace," Stan said about Sammi's tea parties with angels. "Obviously God's got a plan."Stan fills the house with music. One of Sammi's favorite songs was "Hallelujah," as recorded on the first "Shrek" CD. For a moment you expect to see Sammi sweeping across the floor, holding her father's face in her hands, while she sings the refrain.

"I never asked why once," Stan said about his daughter's death. "Because I'm never going to find out."

Grandmother Nancy Hoster has good days and bad days. Sometimes she can almost touch joy while other days she can't stop the tears.

"Cherish the moment," she said. "Hang on to the good. Don't take the little beautiful things in your life for granted." And she doesn't stop praying. 

"Sammi wouldn't want us to be mad at God," Nancy said. "It would undermine Sammi's whole life if we stopped believing in God."

Stan also relies heavily on his faith."I'm more thankful to God," Stan said. "I had no control over the sickness, and no control over a bacteria. I don't have control so it's in God's hands."

Remembering Sammi's relationship with angels helps Stan move forward."Sammi talked to angels," he said. "Having her in my life has been a blessing. I was 24 years old with long hair when she came into my life. When Stephanie would get nervous about the angels I would tell her it's a privilege. Our kid is so outstanding and special that she has angels visiting her. Angels never come talk to me. She's got a friend in Jesus and I'm comfortable with that."

And so is Stephanie. She has no regrets. She loved Sammi completely."I remember the shape of every finger and the crinkles in her eyes when she smiled," Stephanie said. And she knows her daughter rests in peace."The last thing I said was 'You're going to wake up and everything will be fine,'" Stephanie said. The tears slide down her face as she remembers those moments in the hospital."And I didn't lie to her. She's with her angel friends in heaven. She's having tea parties with angels."

A LIFE-CHANGING RESPONSE

fdonlan@news-press.com

Taylor Williams believes in angels.On Feb. 27, two pit bulls burst through a flimsy fence and attacked the 23-year-old as she walked in her San Carlos Park neighborhood.The dogs bit and scratched her legs and feet. The attack also damaged the nerves in her right arm causing it to swell suddenly. Pain medication made her too tired to work. She had nightmares and lived with chronic pain. She quit her job as a public information officer and spent hours alone in her bedroom.

"It wasn't me at all," Taylor said. "I was lower than low. It was the first time I've ever felt like that, and it was scary. I gave up and thought this was me for the rest of the life."

Seven months after the attack, her 10-year-old sister, Mackenzie, began reading the seven-part series, "Tea Parties with Angels," in her Gateway Elementary class. Mackenzie read the first story to her mother, Marybeth.Taylor didn't want any part of it. But by the third day of the series, she relented and began reading about Sammi Huhn, the 11-year-old Cape Coral girl who talked to angels and battled a disease that eventually took her life.

A few weeks after the series was published, Taylor and Marybeth joined Mackenzie and her fifth-grade classmates to talk to the reporter who wrote "Tea Parties with Angels."

People raised their hands, eager to ask questions. One of those hands was Taylor's."Does the story still make you cry?" she asked. Marybeth looked at her daughter in disbelief."She came out of her shell," Marybeth said. "It was the first time she tried to participate in life again. It was a miracle to be there."

During that week when Taylor read about Sammi's death, something started to change.Color came back into a gray world."It was like God coming out of the heavens and saying, 'Look at this little girl, and the pain of everything they had to go through,' " Taylor said. "Everything happens for a reason. God did have a plan. Sammi's story gave me the boost to get out of my own way."

Marybeth and Mackenzie also believe Sammi brought their family together.

"The three of us enjoyed the privilege of getting to know the miracle of Sammi's story," Marybeth said. "The courage of Sammi's family was an inspiration to all of us. She helped us regain the strength that was hidden but there all along."

Taylor got her chance to meet Stephanie Huhn, Sammi's mother, at a Dec. 11 fund-raiser organized to help the mother pay their daughter's medical bills. Marybeth, Mackenzie and Taylor created an angel made of pink ribbons for the Christmas fund-raiser.

"There was a part in the 'Tea Parties' story where Stephanie lays down and asks God to take away her worries," Taylor said. "I wanted to be strong like that. I learned from her." 

Taylor went back to work a few weeks after "Tea Parties With Angels" was published. She still lives with pain from the attack. But she is moving forward, just like Stephanie." 

'Tea Parties with Angels' served as a saving grace for us," Marybeth said. "We don't know why things happen to us, but we have a choice every day to persevere and let the love in our hearts shine."