Gary has told me more than once that the saddest place in the world is the section of a graveyard set aside for babies.

Thankfully, improvements in healthcare and the development of vaccines have helped tremendously over the years. Far fewer infants die at birth. But still, some of the most precious and fragile among us do not survive those early hours.

Gary and I went to the St. Ferdinand Cemetery yesterday evening to pay our respects to a little fellow who should have been celebrating his 39th birthday. We’ve never met him, we don’t know his parents. But his story touched us deeply.

Wandering through Section D of the cemetery, I noticed many of the tiny gravestones didn’t include the customary dates of birth and death. Instead, just a single year, which covered both of those life events.

We searched for “Baby Boy.” We found “A Child of God.”

Back in 1987, after police announced that the infant’s birth and death did not involve one of the girls at the local boarding school, the community settled back into everyday life. I remember watching the movie Agnes of God and thinking there was no Jane Fonda character to figure out this mystery.

The baby has a last name now, thanks to DNA testing. It turns out his teen mother was a student at the local academy. We now know she gave birth in a toilet and as the newborn choked on amniotic fluid, she ran back to her dorm room to grab a plastic bag and a box, to pack up his little body and the afterbirth. Off to the janitor’s closet, to be discovered on the first day of April.

The mother, now married and a parent to other children, lives in another state. Her lawyers recently negotiated a plea deal with probation.

Did she visit her child’s grave while in town? Did anyone pay their respect to this child of God over the years?

Social media erupted with anger and calls for punishment when the news broke. And where was the father? The furor calmed down after a few weeks. People went on with their lives.

But what about that tiny soul? He cried at birth. He fought for life. The coroner, all those years ago, said the infant would have survived with basic medical care.

As I do for members of our family, I checked the Find A Grave website to make sure there was a Memorial in place. There was already a memorial page for him there, but no photo of the grave.

So Gary and I took a walk in the cemetery, down the hill from the now shuttered school.

We said a quiet prayer, took a picture, and left a toy.

It was the least we could do.