MIDWAY, Utah — After grieving for the loss of a child, one family in Midway now has discovered their decorated tree in the child's memory was stolen.
Caizlee Price was born last January.
“Caizlee was the best baby she was happy all the time we would talk to her, and anytime she had your attention. She would just smile,” described her mother, Chris Price.
Baby Caizlee died suddenly over the summer. She was just a week shy of turning 7 months old.
To honor her memory, the Price family decorated her grave. In the Fall, they had pumpkin and corn stalk decorations and brought fresh mums for her. Over Christmas, they decorated a tree for baby Caizlee.
“Ever since Caizlee passed away, butterflies and hummingbirds have been special to us. We feel like every time we see one that it's her, you know, sending us a message,” said Price. “We had some really pretty sequined butterflies on it that I'd found. Everything on the tree was pink. I had found some solar lights, like a snowflake for the star on top, we had the having birds. And then there was a photo of Caizlee.”
But the day after Christmas, the tree was gone. Someone had taken it from her grave.
“I put a lot of time and energy into it and so I don't know, just disappointed,” said Price. “I've been warned that people steal stuff from the cemetery all the time. I really wasn't surprised. I told my husband we can't let this upset us. We'll just get a new one next year. We can decorate a new one.”
But, the family wishes this never happened.
“It was healing in a way to decorate her grave, and I thought to myself, 'I'll have an entire like time of buying my children things,' and this is the only thing I can do for her. So, it's been really important to me to make her resting place look pretty. And it's just something that I felt like was therapeutic for me to decorate her spot,” added Price.
Price said she used the situation as a teaching moment for Caizlee’s siblings.
“I have little kids, and it meant a lot to them, too; and it was just sad that somebody took something that wasn't theirs, and we told our kids. Remember how this makes you feel, and just make sure that you never do anything like this to somebody else.”
Another way the Price family is keeping their baby’s memory alive is by paying forward the kindness they received.
“When I was at the hospital, having Caizlee, and I was sent to the hospital unexpectedly, I had my 3-year-old daughter with me, and so they had a gift basket there, with kid things in it: coloring books and bubbles and stuffed animals, and you know crayons," she said. "I also received a basket with a journal and pens, and like playing cards and socks and chapstick, and things that a mother would need, and I know that that was donated by somebody."
So Price and her family are making gift baskets for babies and moms at the hospital, and plan to deliver them the day before Caizlee’s first birthday in her honor.
“When you're grieving instead of focusing on what you are missing," she said. "Or you know your pain if you can focus on giving to others, I think that it can bring you joy, maybe some purpose to this tragedy.”
