My Story

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Chelsea's Story.

Our home in Waxahachie, Texas was being remodelled, and we had lost the lease on our rental house in April so we moved in with my mother in DeSoto, Texas who happens to have a swimming pool in her back yard. We had admonished Chelsea time and time again to stay away from the swimming pool, which she had done for a whole month. She was afraid of the water, and wouldn’t go anywhere off the top step even when someone was with her in the summer. The day of the accident, May 2, 2005 was just like any other day. Chelsea asked me “Mommy can I go play with “Sister” (her dog)?” And I said “Yes, but stay on the porch away from the swimming pool” and she said “Ok” and went out to play. I sat down in a chair right next to the glass doors and started nursing Isabella. After a few minutes I couldn’t hear Chelsea talking to the dog, so I yelled her name she didn’t answer so I got up to look for her.
That moment will forever be etched in my memory when I got to the glass door and saw her lying face down on the bottom of the swimming pool. Maternal instincts took over and I set Isabella on the floor and flew out the door. All I remember is hitting the top step of the pool and then grabbing her and hauling her out of the water. I laid her on the concrete next to the pool and saw that she was blue around her mouth and eyes. My main thought was “I have to make my baby breathe” so I began CPR all the while screaming her name and “God please don’t take my baby” I did about 4 rounds of CPR and continued to turn her over on her side when she would expel the water and vomit. Then I grabbed her up and ran in the house to call 911. Then I took her back to the poolside so the rescue people could find me without having to search the house. I continued CPR until the first police officer on the scene took over then the paramedics immediately after him. I told them that I had to get my newborn daughter and they told me to go on. When I got in the house, another of the firemen had picked Isabella up off the floor and was comforting her. I asked him to call my mother at work and he handed me the cell phone and said “If you’ll dial the number I’ll talk to her” so I dialled and he talked to her. She headed straight to the first hospital to be with Chelsea. I found the next door neighbour in the front yard and asked him to call my husband at work, not knowing that my husband had left an hour before to come home. When A.J. (our neighbour) came in the house, there was some kind of misunderstanding and I grabbed the phone and was talking to James (my husbands boss) and told him that Chelsea had fallen in the swimming pool and they were taking her to the hospital. He told me that William had left an hour before. He works in Corsicana, which is about an hour from my mother's home so I figured that he'd be home any time. They asked me if I wanted to ride in the ambulance with Chelsea to the hospital, and I told them no because I had Isabella, and I just felt that they could do more good without me in there being the hysterical mother. So I waited at home for William, and then found out that he’d had a flat tire about 10 minutes from home. Eventually I got into the police car and went to Charleton Methodist Hospital (in DeSoto) where they took her first to Care Flight her to Children’s Medical Centre in Dallas. William got to the house about 10 minutes after I left and was told by the neighbour that they had taken Chelsea by Care Flight to Children’s so he headed straight for Children’s. I rode with my mother to Children’s and when I got there my entire family was there, my mother, me, William, his mother and brother, my father, and my grandmother; my mother was constantly trying to reach my step-father who she finally got a hold of and he came immediately. I finally got to go in and see her, and it was horrible…but I knew that she was in the best possible place to get care.
They worked on her in the ER and then took her up to the ICU where she lived on until Thursday morning at 1:37a.m. She opened her eyes to her daddy and me on Tuesday morning at about 3:30 a.m. and was moving her head around. But then her small body couldn’t fight off the inflammation in her lungs caused by the water, and her daddy and I had to make a decision if we wanted them to continue to try and save her or not if her heart stopped. We talked and decided that she was no longer there, and that she had let us know Tuesday morning that she knew we were there and that she was leaving us to be with Jesus.
So we decided to turn off the machines, my parents and my grandmother, and William’s parents stayed with her as they turned the machines off; I personally couldn’t handle it and left the room. The nurses were wonderful, they asked me if there was anything special we wanted, and I told them I wanted to hold her, and some locks of her hair. After everything was taken off of her and they had cleaned her up William and I went in and held our angel one last time then he left and I stayed as the nurses came in to snip the locks of hair from her, and they gave me 4 of them one for each of us, William, myself and Isabella. They took hand and feet print for me and gave me the two blankets that had been with her, they put all of these things in a memory box and we left to go home.
It’s been a long many days and nights since we lost our angel, but we know that she’s around us always. Isabella smiles at her all the time, and we see things that we know are signs from God letting us know that our angel is ok and with Him.




Chelsea's Obituary.

Chelsea Leighann Wilkins


WILKINS, CHELSEA LEIGHANN of Waxahachie, TX, Blessed our lives January 9, 2001. Became our guardian angel May 5, 2005. Survived by parents, William & Leigh O'Dell; baby sister, Isabella Grace O'Dell; grandparents, Kenneth & Joann Stripling, Wayne Wilkins, Benny & Cathy O'Dell; great-grandmother, Bobbi Wilkins; great grandfather, Bruce Stripling; great-grandparents, Bill & Melba Montgomery; aunts; uncles; cousins; and many friends. Funeral service 2:00 p.m. Monday, May 9, 2005 at Byrum Funeral Home Chapel, Lancaster. Burial in Edgewood Cemetery, Lancaster, TX. Family will receive friends Sunday evening 6 to 8 at funeral home. Memorials may be made to Children's Medical Centre of Dallas or Ronald McDonald House.



My love for you surpasses,

The capacity of words to express.

It will continue past this life,

It will not end in death.

Heaven is eternal;

And so my love shall be.

I will hold you in my heart,

Throughout eternity.

~Wayne Wilkins~


Who Chelsea was


Chelsea was a joy to have. She could be a little stinker at times…but she never did anything to be malicious. When her Daddy would come home from work she’d run into the living room and yell “DADDY!!!” She loved the commercial on T.V. of the puppy singing “Hello mother, hello father, fleas, ticks mosquitoes, really bother…” it’s an Advantix commercial. She’d see that on T.V. and turn around and look at me and say that’s my favorite commercial. She liked it so much she’d run in from another room to watch it if she heard the music. She laughed like no one I’ve ever known…if you had ever had the privilege to hear her laugh it’s a sound that you’d never forget. She loved Dora the Explora, her grandfather bought her tickets to go see Dora Explora live here in Texas and she just loved it. She watched public television here in Texas which is Sesame Street, Caliou, Between the Lions etc. everyday. She loved to play on my computer, she had a Dora game that she just loved, because it was the same game as the live show that we had gone to see. She wanted to learn to ride the bike that Santa brought her for Christmas. She loved shopping for her daddy. A week or so before she passed she went shopping for with my mother and picked out the boxers for her Daddy. She loved to be a big sister…she went with my mother the day Isabella was born to the grocery store, and was wearing her “I’m the big sister” shirt, one elderly gentleman came up to her and asked her about her shirt. She looked at him with a solemn face and told him, “I have a baby sister and I just waited, and waited and waited for her.” When I was pregnant with Isabella and would take a bath, she would come in and say to me “Mommy can I help you wash baby sister?” (She was convinced that I was having a girl, even though the Dr. told us he wasn’t sure it was a girl or not.) Then she would wash my belly and sing “This is the way we wash Mommy’s belly early in the morning” didn’t matter what time of day it was it was always early in the morning. When she was small I would tell her I love you, and she would say I love you too, then I would say I love you more, and she’d say I love you ‘gin (again) it was just so cute the way it came out, we’d go back and forth I love you more, I love you ‘gin, I love you ‘gin, I love you more. Chelsea loved ladybugs…she was a ladybug hunter; she could spot a ladybug in a room when no one else knew it was there. She was a photo ham…smiled all the time when someone wanted to take her picture. She loved her grandma and pawpaw they taught her how to play “rolly polly” they would wrap her up in a blanket and then pull the blanket while she rolled out of it onto the floor. She loved the pet store and the mall…she loved the park, and making her “Chelsea concoction” which is this…when we’d go over to her Grandma Cathy’s and PawPaw Benny’s she’d get PawPaw’s coffee cup and start pouring anything she could find into it. Ashes from the ash tray, salt, pepper, BBQ sauce, ketchup, dirt. Then she’d stir it up and that was her concoction. After she passed Grandma Cathy and PawPaw Benny made a box and put the things to make her Chelsea concoction in the box so that they’d always have her concoction. She loved to wash Grandma’s car, go for walks, pick flowers (buttercups and dandelions were her favorite). She loved McDonalds chicken nuggets, and Nerds Rope. She loved her cousins and her best friend Melissa Ashleigh. She loved "nasio" nuts (Pistasico nuts), and "Amblylances" She loved Disney Princess stuff, and even had her room painted princess pink.

Joy In Heaven~

Listen...can you hear it?
A heavenly choir sings.
Another little angel
Just got her set of wings.
There's joy and there is shouting
As she steps through heaven's gate.
They all lined up to greet her.
All the angels celebrate.
Her eyes are shining brightly
And a smile lights her face,
As she receives her halo
And takes her special place.
She's the smallest little angel
With the biggest kind of love.
She's wiser than an owl
And more peaceful than a dove.
And though there's joy in heaven,
There is sorrow down below.
broken hearts are crying
Since they had to let her go.
So she watches them from heaven
But she knows the time will come,
They will join their precious daughter
When their work on earth is done


~ Author Unknown ~




~Looking Down From Heaven~

I'm looking down from Heaven Mommy
I don't like to see you cry
I remember how you loved me
I did not want to say good-bye.

I don't ever get very lonely
At night Jesus rocks me to sleep
I play with the other little angels
From cloud to cloud we leap.

There's a new little angel here
His mommy is very sad
Her heart is surely broken
And like you, she hurts so bad.

Could you do something for me Mommy?
If it's not to much to ask?
You were always so gentle and kind to me
So I know you are up to the task.

You see, I'm trying to help this angel
He misses his Mommy so
And as we look down together from Heaven
There's something you should know.

We will soon be all together
But there is time to pass till then
Could you hold her a little while
And try to be her friend?

We don't like to see you crying
Up here in Angel Land
So instead of pointing fingers
Could you please just take her hand?

It will make us both feel better
As we look down from up above
If you all are holding up each other
And remembering us with love.


~ Author unknown ~




~God Saw You~ (Printed on the inside of her funeral program)

God saw you getting tired
and a cure was not to be,
So he put his arms around you
and whispered come to me.

With tearful eyes we watched you
and saw you pass away,
And though we loved you dearly
we could not make you stay.

A golden heart stopped beating
hard working hands at rest,
God broke our hearts to prove to us
He only takes the best.




Remembering Chelsea

This poem was written by my sister-in-law Kelly for Chelsea after her death.

It’s when my world is quiet

And sleep is finally found

That thoughts of you flit through my mind

Like the way you’d dance around

My dreams are somehow filled

In the spaces you left behind

With little girl squeals and giggles

And hands that clapped in delight

The spunky little princess

That turned flips and ran and played

The drowsy, soapy-smelling child

Who still had so much to say

And when I’ve watched you

Smile and pout and be the girl we loved

I see the pool that took you

To the safe place up above

May God who holds you in His arms

Send comfort down when we’re sad

And may we remember the blessings

Of the few years that you had








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