So Jim doesn't have to, he has more important things to focus on right now, I want to let everyone here, on the Dark Sword site, know that yesterday, Wednesday the 14th, Jim and Melissa's little baby girl, Lillian, passed away after 3 days in intensive care. She stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest at daycare on Monday.

The entire miniatures hobby industry, Dark Sword fans, and hobby enthusiasts around the world can please send a prayer or take time to focus a good thought on the Ludwig family.

I also ask, please, that all fans and customers please give Jim and Melissa the time they need at this moment. Jim has done his best to email some people, always asking for prayers and I want to make sure Jim, that you know we're all praying for you and holding you in our thoughts, around the world.

When I have any information on memorial services, I will make sure to pass them along.

Forwarding from Jim, both his heartbreaking email about what happened and the memorial services information. Please spread the word.

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Lillian Grace Ludwig (our daughter) left this world holding the hand of God at 8:41 pm CST last night - 01/14/2008. She peacefully died in our arms as we talked to her telling her how much we love her and how amazing our exactly 100 days to almost the minute were before she had her incident at Daycare on Monday where she stopped breathing while sleeping.

She then held on for 3 long days as a last gift to us so we could say our goodbyes and let our friends/family say their goodbyes. She was such a little trooper trying to breathe on her own and fight through this. She just could not breath enough to sustain herself on her own after the brain damage. There were glimmers of hope here and there, but the damage to her brain was so devastating from the initial daycare incident, all of her upper brain functions were gone.

Melissa and I will never be the same as sharing our brief time with Lillian has changed us forever. They were the 100 most amazing days of our lives and also the most devastating at the end. Please see the attached pics we took the night before the incident (The Geek Shirt pic was from approx 2 months old and not really funny at all). She was so happy and so talkative. She just the same the morning we took her to daycare. We have no answers yet except some sort of SIDS-type attack that happened at Daycare.

It is so tough to type through the tears but I wanted to get something to everyone so you can all feel the calming peace that Melissa and I felt as we spent our last two hours with her alone reading her stories, giving her the full-body massage that she loves so much (feet especially) and just telling her how much we love her and how many people are praying for her. Looking across the bed at my wife lovingly rubbing lotion on our little baby girl was one of the most touching and beautiful things I have ever witnessed in my life as we were so peaceful with her in those final hours. We then sat down with her and held her so tight and told her once again how much we will miss her and how heartbroken we are that this tragic event occurred. Lillian has donated her heart valves and possibly her corneas to help other babies in need. Her final act of love will be helping out another family so their little child can hopefully pull through a terrible situation and live a happy & full life. Lillian is now looking down upon us all from heaven and she is filled with all of our love and the love of God. She is at peace and she is waiting for Melissa and I to join her when our time comes to be called home.

No word yet on the service/funeral time/places.

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

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The "short obit" was posted today with the full obit coming on Sunday. Can you all forward onto any folks that would like to have this information please?



http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=122911169



The Wake is from 5-8 PM CST on Sunday night at Evans Nordby Funeral Home in Osseo MN. Prayer Service at 7 pm. Address: 34 Second St. NE, Osseo, MN 55369 - phone 763-424-4000



The Funeral mass at St. Gerard Church (where we were married and Lillian was baptized 1 month ago) starts at 11 am CST on Monday morning with a viewing at 10am CST for those that could not attend the wake. A lunch will be served afterwards.



St Gerard Church

Address:
9600 Regent Ave N, Brooklyn Park, MN 55443

Phone:
(763) 424-8770




http://yp.yahoo.com/py/ypMap.py?tuid=24949352&ycat=8515601&city=Champlin&state=MN&zip=55316&uzip=55316&msa=5120&slt=45.1694&sln=-93.3842&cs=5&stat=:pos:3:regular:regT:20:fbT:0





The following was sent to us from a person who we shared our loss of Lillian with. It is quite beautiful and really sums up how Melissa and I feel about Lillian's early passing when we are not crying about her loss to us and the things we will never be able to watch her do as she grew up into a young lady:

"Precious is life. Life may be long or short. When a baby is taken and sadness and grief overwhelm think of that life. A babies life is love, attention, touch and love returned. They are joy, they are the basic needs of food and water and shelter and faith and love. This is what they know. This is ONLY what they learn. They never learn of the pain, the heartache, the destruction or wars in this world. They never see the pain of person hurting a person or a person hurting animals. They do not know the fight for survival nor the death of anything. They live for a short brief time in the light of this world and they take that with them when they leave.

Sometimes a life ends and time runs out and so the soul is sent back to finish some unknown task. A babies short life may be just what is needed to fulfill that last act.

Take heart that such lives become the cherubim spoken of in song and story and depicted in paintings. She is now a little angel up there that is watching over the family and she takes great comfort in that.

Your beautiful little girl awaits you and she will be there for you and she will whisper in the ear of the all powerful for you and she will love you in the purest form forever. You were her parents. You showed her the best of the human spirit. How could she not?"

Jim Ludwig

To Jim and Melissa,
God Bless You and Yours, Lillian is safe with God now.

Passing along further details...

http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=122911169

Donations in Lillian's name preferred to Children's Hospital MN and The Church of St. Gerard.

Thank you to everyone for your emails and your kind words in this trying time.

All orders I had inhouse have been shipped out as of an hour ago so we are all set on that front.

Feel free to place orders as we will be back to our normal (very-fast) shipping turn-around times.

Cheers,

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com