We Lost Our Infant Son to SIDS
Michelle, Jerry and baby JJ. Photos courtesy of Michelle Crispino.
I had just returned to work from maternity leave when I got the call — from a hospital, informing me that my 3-month-old son Jeremiah Jr. had stopped breathing while napping at daycare. My husband Jerry and I raced to meet him. But by the time we got there, our son had died. We held him one last time, eventually leaving with my sister and brother-in-law, all of us thinking: This can’t be true. He was our first child and we had called him JJ, and he’d just celebrated his first Halloween — and now he was suddenly gone, a victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
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SIDS is the sudden, unexpected death of an infant younger than 1 year of age, diagnosed only once all other recognizable causes of infant death have been ruled out. It often occurs during a period of sleep, and is the leading cause of death among infants. While medical experts have identified risk factors for SIDS, there is no clear answer as to why it occurs in seemingly healthy children like JJ.
We never imagined SIDS could have happened to our thriving son. A day after his death, we received a phone call from Maryland’s Center for Infant and Child Loss (CICL), offering grief support in their role as liaison between families the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Autopsies are required in suspected SIDS cases — a jarring thing to learn, although the CICL was always responsive and compassionate, offering help we never anticipated needing.
After JJ died, my hands felt idle while my mind was racing. We went from being parents cleaning bottles and changing diapers to being engulfed in a deafening silence. There was no anger, just profound sadness. We tried to channel our grief in ways that made us feel close to JJ. I started a journal that I carried everywhere, writing details I recalled about his life — like the baby wash we used (Johnson’s Head-to-Toe Baby Wash, in the yellow bottle) or exactly how his hair would stand up on his head.
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My husband, meanwhile, a cigar blogger, spearheaded the Little Robusto Project, for which he partnered with friends at My Father Cigars to create the Series JJ “Little Robusto” edition cigar. They donated proceeds to the CICL and First Candle, a nonprofit that’s dedicated to safe pregnancies and to having babies survive their first year of life. Together, Jerry and I participated in SIDS memorial walks and a CICL fundraising event, largely coordinated by SIDS-survivor families. “Parents are the heartbeat of our center,” LaToya Bates, director of the CICL, tells me today. “Their experience helps grow waves of support for other families in similar circumstances.”
Friends and family listened whenever we would talk about JJ, and wouldn’t hesitate to say they missed him, too. Our parents joined us for Mass every week, all of us finding comfort in being together and in visiting JJ’s gravesite at our church. My sister gave us a key to her house and said the door was always open, no questions asked.
In time, we found a new normal, which still included JJ in our lives. We would bring pinwheels to his grave because as they spun, it felt like he was with us. I found a quote that I’d repeat to myself for strength: “There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle.” For JJ’s first birthday, we sent out candles for others to light in his memory. I still get Facebook messages telling me that candles are lit for JJ’s birthday, and it makes my heart happy.
Gracie at JJ’s gravesite.
Then, in 2009, our daughter Gracie was born. She is our last child, but not our only child. She brings us immense joy, and now, as a precocious preschooler who asks how to write her brother’s name, we see his presence in our family in unexpected ways.
It has been seven years since JJ died. We are open about our loss because denying it feels like it would be denying JJ’s existence in the first place. We are lucky to be surrounded by good people who help us keep JJ’s memory alive. They have helped us with open hearts, eager hands, and compassionate smiles. We could never repay their kindness, and it’s a blessing to know our sweet little boy hasn’t been forgotten. Every time someone says his name or offers us comfort and care, his light burns bright. And his parents’ hearts feel a little fuller again.
Dad and Gracie taking part in a SIDS fundraiser walk.
