Tyler's Tree grew out of a tragedy

Preemie's death led mom to start a book drive for children's hospitals

The doctors told them to keep talking. That studies have shown preemies' vital signs often improve when they hear their parents' voices.

But Laurie and Scott Dudley didn't know what to say. It had been four days of talking to their identical twin boys through the isolettes' walls in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Their hopes lifted and fell with each breath Braden and Tyler took. Born almost three months early in December 2003, they were also suffering the effects of a complication in Laurie's pregnancy.

When you fear every minute will be your babies' last, Laurie says, knowing what to say is tough.

A nurse at Carolinas Medical Center found them struggling

that night as they stared at the boys who were too ill to be touched. She suggested they bring in books to read aloud.

So under the dimmed lights of the NICU they began reading "The Little Red Caboose" and "The Little Engine That Could," to Tyler. They read the Mickey Mouse version of "A Christmas Carol" to Braden.

"I don't know how she sensed our helplessness, but thank God she did," Laurie said.  Braden's condition stabilized.

But Tyler, the smaller baby, suddenly got much worse. After several hours the doctors sent Laurie, 25, and Scott, 33, home to rest.

The Dudleys, who live in Monroe, took comfort knowing fellow members at Matthews United Methodist Church were praying for them.

A nurse called before dawn about Tyler.

And so, they returned to the hospital where they finally got to hold Tyler for the first time. And the last.

While the doctors thought the infant had only minutes left, he stayed with them for nearly half a day. Hour after hour, once again, they read to him. And then Tyler died, seven days old.

The comfort of books

Braden went home after four months.Laurie and Scott ached for Tyler. It hurt to hear daughter Isabelle, then 2, correct people, saying she had two brothers, but one was in heaven with Jesus.

"I struggled with the fact that (only) my husband and family, and a very few close friends, would never see his face, would ever know he was here and we loved him," Laurie says of Tyler. "We had to make sure that the world knew who he was and that his name would do something good."

A couple of weeks before the twins' first birthday, on Dec. 2, 2004, Laurie thought about how books had helped comfort Tyler. How they'd given her and Scott a way to help him.

So she launched a book drive for children's hospitals called Tyler's Tree. It kicked off on the boys' birthday. The Dudleys planned to deliver the books on Christmas, a day when only the sickest kids don't get to go home.

"Christmas comes and goes like it's like any other day when you're in the hospital, and it shouldn't be that way," she says.

They set up collection sites across South Charlotte and Matthews. At Matthews United Methodist they set up boxes under a Christmas tree.

In 22 days they collected more than 800 books, enough for children at four hospitals in Charlotte and Monroe.

The Dudleys repeated the drive last year, collecting more than 3,000 books. Six hundred went to local hospitals. The rest were sent to orphanages in Charlotte and Africa, and a library destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

This year's drive has even more collection sites (see box) in southern Mecklenburg and includes two events for families to help make cards and bookmarks.

And this time baby Jaxon, 9 months, will be there when the Dudleys deliver the books.

"Tyler has absolutely changed me, in his life and his death," Laurie says. "In seven days this tiny baby has inspired us to do for others. ... I'd rather have him here, but he gave us an amazing gift as a family.