Jennifer Lyne

The text of the Houston Post article found here has been reproduced below.

As a tiny infant, Jennifer Lyne loved music. “She’d be boo-hoo crying and I’d sing a few bars of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and she would just smile,” recalls her foster mother Tricia Peck.

So when Peck decided to make a quilt in honor of 7 ½-month-old Jennifer, she knew it had to include a reference to the sun.

The panel dedicated to Jennifer, the first baby in Harris County believed to have died of the disease, is stunning in its simplicity. It includes her picture in the middle of a sunburst, a favorite outfit, and a drawing of a mouse.

“We brought her crib into our bedroom the first night and she made a squeaking noise,” Peck recalls. “From that time on, we called her our tiny little mouse.”

Bud and Tricia Peck didn’t know Jennifer had AIDS until five months after her death. The couple had taken her into their home when she was one month old, after her biological parents (street people believed to be using intravenous drugs and engaging in prostitution) turned her over to the DePelchin Children’s Center.

But Tricia Peck says you don’t love anyone less because they have AIDS. “The real message of my experience with Jennifer is this: you can’t get AIDS from loving and caring for someone.”