Marceline (Marci) Phillips was born on 9/24/2024. We knew she would have a difficult road ahead of her. Born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, she was in the hospital and in and out of the cardiac intensive care unit for 87 before she finally came home. During that 87 days she had her first open heart surgery - the Norwood - to enlarge her aorta and insert a shunt to send blood from the right ventricle straight into her surgically enhanced aorta and out to her body.

On April 8th, 2025 she went in for her second surgery, the bi-lateral Glenn surgery. This routed de-oxygenated blood from her brain and upper body directly back to her lungs.

After her Glenn everything was smooth sailing for Marci. She learned to eat solid food, learned to crawl and eventually walk, learned a few words. Possibly most importantly she really embraced her love of books.

We started Marci on a path to read 1,000 books before kindergarten, sponsored by the library. Marci insisted on reading several times per day, sometimes she would read a book with us, climb off of us, go grab another book, and insist we read that book. And this would repeat until we made her stop, usually causing a full on toddler temper tantrum. She wasn’t our book worm, she was a book dragon, with a fierce love of books.

On the morning of April 23, 2026 we found our beautiful girl unresponsive. And despite the best efforts of the emergency room staff and paramedics, our Marceline left this world at 8:20am. While we don’t have a conclusive cause of death until the medical examiner finishes their report in 12-14 weeks, we can only assume that her amazing little heart just grew tired, and couldn’t continue.

While we hate the idea of asking for help, we understand we need it. Chris is going to have to take unpaid time off work in order to properly grieve. And we must continue with planning services to honor Marci. We need help with bills and day to day expenses as well as costs associated with Marci’s final planning.

If you are able, please consider donating.