His mother, Jennifer Hall, tucked one of his pacifiers beside him in the tiny casket.

“For all the pain that boy went through, he was the happiest little thing,” she said.

Born premature with a heart condition called hydrops fetalis, Drake’s lungs weren’t fully developed. His heart condition improved over time, but his lung condition never did. His body was constantly fighting recurrent bouts of pneumonia.

It was another bout of the chronic lung infection that took the Webbers Falls youngster back to his second home at St. John Medical Center’s pediatric intensive care unit in mid-October. Nearly two weeks later, he had improved and was set to go home when his oxygen levels began to drop. He was put on a ventilator.

The boy, whom nurses affectionately called “Chicken Little” because of his round face, glasses and a big curl atop his head, had contracted the novel H1N1 flu virus. A week later on Oct. 29, Drake died surrounded by his family and many of the nurses who loved him.

Read the complete story in Sunday's World.