SAD

Kimmie 1988

Age: Fourteen





      How does one recover? Who could ever be prepared? As a fourteen-year-old child, I knew that I was too immature to make sense of it all and now as a thirty-six year old adult, I am certain that no age is mature enough to handle the devastation.
     The story that haunts my memory; that infests my dreams; and that still makes my head shake in disbelief, took place about twenty-five years ago on my uncle’s birthday. The events surrounding that day were passed on from family member to family member leaving the absolute truth slightly jumbled with each new translation. And my aunt and uncle, who experienced everything first hand, initially relayed the awful news under a cloud of panic and despair. The outcome, however, has never changed; the outcome, unfortunately, has always remained the same.
     On that life altering morning, my uncle and aunt awoke with their two oldest children and prepared to celebrate my uncle’s birthday. The baby lay sleeping while they began fixing breakfast. The day seemed normal, yet the fact that the baby was still asleep concerned my uncle. He decided to go in and check on his sweet girl.
     As he approached the crib, he realized that her blanket was positioned up over her little head. His heart began to pound rapidly as he ran in and pulled the blanket down only to discover her blue coloring.
     Panic set in as he ripped the blanket off, picked her up and tried to wake her. When he realized that she was not breathing, he screamed to his wife who ran to him and somehow, through her hysteria, managed to phone 911. My uncle performed CPR while they desperately waited for the ambulance to arrive.
     Unbelievable…unbelievable! How could this happen? Why did this happen? I cannot imagine the thoughts that must have been running through their heads: sheer panic, utter hopelessness, extreme anxiety. Plus, they had two other children to tend to while this horrific event took place. My heart races as I write these words and tears are forming in my eyes. Time has eased the pain, but my memory will not forget the trauma.
     The paramedics eventually arrived at my aunt and uncle’s panic stricken home, but it was too late. My four month old baby cousin, Kimberly Jean, had died and no amount of medical help or knowledge was going to bring her back.
     Having lost their ability to make sense of the world, my aunt and uncle rode with their baby to the hospital. It has been said that my heartbroken aunt sat in a hospital chair and rocked her daughter’s lifeless body for hours without a word.
     I have often pictured her in a state of shock and disbelief while she rocked that lovely baby. Nobody should ever have to feel the pain of losing a child, it is just not fair. Then adding insult to injury, as the terrible event played over and over in my aunt’s head, she ultimately convinced herself that Kimmie had smothered to death in her blanket. Even after hearing that the coroner’s autopsy concluded SIDS to be the cause of death, my aunt could not believe the findings and put the burden on herself for placing a blanket in Kimmie’s crib.
     Who needs those thoughts? Losing a child is bad enough, but placing unnecessary blame is torture.
     Through the thick fog, my shell-shocked uncle somehow managed to call his dad, my grandfather, to relay the awful news. My grandpa always said that losing Kimmie was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He could think of nothing worse than watching his son and daughter-in-law go through that kind of heartache.
     The news hit everyone hard as you can imagine: A full blow to the gut would have been less paralyzing. Nobody knew what to do, how to act, where to begin.
     I was in eighth grade and had never known anyone to die, nor had I even been to a funeral. Death had always freaked me out. I mean it. I used to have panic attacks about death, eternal life, heaven, hell. The uncertainty of the after-life really hit me hard as an adolescent and now I had to face it straight on and not at a funeral where you can celebrate a person’s long life and accomplishments, we had to face it at a funeral where “what could have been and what should have been” would be the focus.