Losing a child is the worst type of trauma a mother will ever go through!
It was a sad day a couple of weeks ago when we bid farewell to our nurse who volunteered her time in February and March 2024 to help Kimberly as she took a job in Seattle for a 3-month gig as a traveling nurse.
I remember as we got close to the last day, as the two were talking, when Kimberly said, “My heart was broken when my daughter died.”
Previously to that period, Kimberly kept talking about going to an Easter Party. I know that her biological clock is off, and we were not close to Easter, so why was she repeating this 20 times a day?
I should have known this because we have gone through this every year for the last 39 years at the same period, but with everything going on with her Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia Stage 2, I was not tuned into what Kimberly was trying to express.
During this period, she was carrying her second child, Michelle Marie, who was born on April 3, 1976. On the morning of May 31, 1976, Kimberly woke to check on Michelle but discovered she was not breathing.
Kimberly’s heart was broken that day as it turned out Michelle passed away from crib death (SIDS). It was also heartbreaking when authorities brought her in as she was under investigation for her daughter’s death. This was the period when no one understood SIDS, and many mothers were brought in for questioning when their child passed away from such death.
While she was being questioned, her mother-in-law entered their home and physically removed everything related to Michelle. When Kimberly got home, she dropped to her knees and cried her heart out when she discovered that Michelle’s things were gone. She had no closure with her daughter, so she carried a heavy heart to date.
Michelle was put to rest in the children’s section of Holy Cross Cemetery in Spokane, WA, with a marker because Kimberly was not in the right frame of mind to look for a headstone. Her husband at the time was not of any help or comfort to her as he was an alcoholic.
A week or so later, Kimberly was doing laundry when she opened the dryer and discovered Michelle’s blanket, sleepwear, and bonnet, which she has kept to date.
Because she did not have a proper closure, the period from March to May is when Kimberly’s personality changes, and with her disease, it only compounds what is running through her long-term memory.
Today, I showed her the headstone she purchased about 20 years after Michelle’s death. She located it one morning while going to work. She had been looking for years for the proper headstone. After I showed her the photo, she said, “My heart was broken when my daughter died.” Then there was a pause, and then she said, “When are we going to the Easter Party?”
I looked at her and said that the Easter Party you keep talking about is the celebration of your daughter’s birth and death; as soon as the weather breaks, we will visit Michelle. She said, “I would like that.”
This type of trauma in Kimberly’s life could have triggered her tinnitus, which may have led to the dementia disease that she currently has!
