Karin Shaw-Anderson / The Dallas Morning News

Pictures show a tiny face marked by deformities, but stories of Asia Skyye Burton describe a child touched by blessings.

"Everything that has happened in Asia's life has been something that ...
there's no explanation," said her mother, Tabatha O'Hare of Balch Springs.
The tiny girl was born seven weeks premature on May 27, 2003, with fluid on
her brain. Experts said she would be lucky to live a full day. Scarring
during fetal development had left her right eye misshapen and blind.

Some fingers and toes were missing, and her brain lacked the development
that doctors said she needed to walk, talk, eat and even breathe on her own.
Yet Asia would do all those things. She eventually played happily with her
family and the therapists who worked to keep her stimulated.

"She was sitting up on her own and walking along the couch," Ms. O'Hare
said. "She was a very smart baby, a very happy baby."

Home videos show Asia learning to say "Mama" and naming her eyes and nose.
She smiled for strangers and begged to play peek-a-boo.

Dr. Jeffrey Fearon, who did reconstructive surgery on Asia's skull, called
her "a special child."

"It was such a pleasure for me to watch Asia grow and develop, defying the
medical odds," he wrote to Ms. O'Hare.

Then, on Christmas Eve, Asia died. Days earlier, the 18-month-old had
slipped into a coma after a sudden illness. Tests determined that she had
suffered a series of mini-strokes, but nothing could pinpoint the cause.

"The brain function appeared to be that of a baby that had drowned or had
suffocated," Ms. O'Hare said. "But they said that typically when a baby
drowns or suffocates, it also harms the organs, and that wasn't so. It
didn't make any sense."

Ms. O'Hare struggled to accept that her child, who had defied doctors'
prognoses time and again, was gone. Equipment at Medical City Dallas
Hospital was keeping Asia's body alive, but an MRI showed no brain activity.
"When they told me she wasn't there anymore, I kept asking over and over and
over, 'Are you sure? Do you promise? You would tell me if she had a chance?'
" Ms. O'Hare said through tears. "I was so used to them telling me that and
me having to fight for her. I felt like I had given up on her.

"But I knew in my head that she wasn't there anymore. I could see it in her
eyes. She wasn't there this time."

Because Asia's organs were still healthy, she was a donor candidate. Ms.
O'Hare wrestled with the decision.

"You know it's something good you can do, but it doesn't feel good at the
moment," she said.

In a way, Asia made the decision for her. "It was in Asia's character," the
mother said. "It was something that Asia would have been proud of."
The little girl's kidneys and liver were taken Christmas morning and given
to two infants on a waiting list with Asia's blood type.
"
"I was sitting in that rocking chair, holding my little baby, crying and
crying," Ms. O'Hare said. "But at the same time I was doing that, someone
else was getting a call. I always wonder if the other person realizes what
is happening on the other side of the fence.

"But I believe that Asia was special, and she was just loaned to me, because
she wasn't supposed to make it. Something good came out of this. She saved
two lives.

"She's always been a miracle. She was born a miracle, and she died a
miracle," Ms. O' Hare said, glancing at Asia's portrait on the wall of her
home. "You always hear that if something is too good to be true, it probably
is. And she was too good to be true, because everything about that baby was
special and loving."

The words might be dismissed as mother's pride if they weren't echoed by
Asia's therapists.

"When I first met Asia, I was just supposed to be consulting, because my
caseload was packed," said Christy Smith, a vision therapist and Mesquite
school district teacher. "But I told my co-worker, 'I just have to have this
baby.'

"There was just something special about her."
Asia's cognitive abilities impressed Ms. Smith and Noelle Stressman, an
early-intervention specialist.

"She did a lot of remarkable things," Ms. Stressman said.
Asia's grandmother Connie O'Hare said the little girl would change people's
hearts during simple shopping excursions.

"We would be at the store waiting in a line full of people," she said.
"People would stare at her, and they wouldn't say anything to her.
"Then I'd say, 'Asia, can you tell the nice lady hi?' She'd start to wave,
and she'd patty-cake, and before long she'd have the whole line playing with
her."
Asia's mother said the girl could live on through the impressions she makes
on others.
"Everybody in the world right now has a chance to save Asia's life, and I'm
asking everybody to save her life, not to let her die," she said. "Let her
story change you in some way.
"I think everybody should think about that - if a little baby can go through
so much and still love, then they can do the same, too."
Ms. O'Hare said God answered her prayers to let Asia live as long as she
did.

"I begged so hard and prayed so hard during my pregnancy and after she was
born that I believe Jesus just couldn't take her from me," she said.

"He just didn't give her to me forever like I would have wanted," she said,
smiling. "I think I should have worded it different."