BABY died peacefully at home on the morning of October 22nd, 2017 in Bell Buckle, Tennessee surrounded by her loving grandparents, Daniel and Therese, and her many siblings: Sonja, Nellie, Owen, and Scooter.
Baby was adopted by her mother, Alley, during the record-breakingly warm summer of 2013. Baby arrived in her new home with a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder and no inkling of the skill to keep her poops outdoors; still, she was loved almost instantly by her housemates and quickly warmed up to the family who offered her table scraps and belly rubs. After being banished to the porch for her incontinence, Baby found thrill in sneaking inside to sleep at the foot of the bed. Upon being caught, Baby would run and poop simultaneously until she was safely outdoors once more. A lover of gross smells and soft things, Baby frequently murdered squirrels, chickens, and the occasional family of raccoons to ensure a pungent friend with whom to share her doghouse. The other dogs would not do.
Baby’s unique style of running--looking like a sausage forging full speed ahead and throwing her humongous ass to the right as she took each step--made her a most significantly successful herder, as Blue Heelers are known to be; however, Baby only saw purpose in herding her sister, Charli, and was in fact once returned by a farmer who tried her out as an employee and accurately accused Baby of being “real nice but not really good for nothin’.” It was discovered that Baby could not swim during one of these sessions of herding Charli. Baby, deciding that Charli was unsafe in the treacherous waters of some backwoods creek, went past her in the murky water, plunging forth until she became invisible and did not arise. Her mother, Alley, gripped her by her rippling back fat and pulled her back to the world of the living-but-not-swimming. As she was drowning and as she was rescued, Baby, per usual, was grinning.
A fierce opponent of unidentified noises and an Olympic gold medalist in the “leave every man on the battlefield behind” event, Baby earned her nickname, Sir Baby the Brave, on one of many traipses through the family’s acres of woodland. There are few constants in this ever-shifting world of transitives and mysteries, but perhaps the one thing we could always count on was that, if we should make it home alive, Baby would be sleeping peacefully under the porch, elated upon our arrival to see that we, too, outran the bad thing.
During her last days on earth, Baby was so pregnant that the rumbling of her many children was visible to the naked eye. Late on the eve of October 20th, 2017, Baby gave stillbirth to one puppy, Bambino, Jr. Her second child, Genoa Salami, was breech and died during birth. Before dawn on October 21, 2017, Baby was rushed to Cascade Veterinary Hospital where Dr. Bobby West performed an emergency Cesarean. Alongside Bambino, Jr. and Genoa Salami, Baby is joined in heaven by the rest of her six children: Lunch Box, Hunga-Munga, Bigsby, and Amanda Jo.
Baby will be greatly missed by many, though none more so than her mother. Alley, missing no opportunity in her life’s time, is a fixer and everyone’s hero. Alley saved Baby from her prior home of desolate destitution, and Baby devoted the rest of her life to proving to Alley just how fat, lazy, and utterly adjusted she could become. Though the pain resounding from Baby’s untimely death is great, her family takes solace in knowing that Baby did not have to know a world after the loss of her children.
Baby Hathorn is survived by her mother, Alley; her sisters, Charli, Sonja, and Nellie; her brothers, Scooter and Owen; her aunt, Addison; her uncle, Sam; her grandparents, Daniel and Therese; and her cousins, Cardea and Cardi B. She is preceded in death by a few turtles, a garden full of fish won at the fair, and her siblings who taught us what it means to love and to lose a furry friend: Tip, Socks, and Cotton.
Baby will be buried after an intimate family service in Tchula, Mississippi, under Annie Mae’s wedding tree. In lieu of flowers, Baby’s grandmother asks that her children stop bringing home all of these damn animals.
Rest easy, Baby. We will think of you often.
