Death of a Child
On Schrodinger's Cats, Raising Ghosts + the Deep Resilience of Motherhood
“…sin, is actually suffering.”
— Nick Cave
This is me holding a baby whose mom was killed a few days ago by a drunk driver.
Suzy, the mom, and her partner, Isaiah, pulled over on the side of a highway because they had run out of gas. A drunk driver in a truck collided with their car, 2:15am. Pummeled them, broke them into pieces.
His name, the driver, is Christopher Lee Walker. He is 33. His life is fucked now too. He fucked it. This is his second DUI, which means statistically he probably drove around 160 times under the influence before getting caught those two times. There are a couple short news pieces about the crash, but nothing in depth. Why? Because it happens all the time: a mom and her 5 and 6 year old sons killed by a drunk driver sitting still at a traffic light, the two troopers who stopped to help a motorist, killed by a drunk driver, the promising Raiders player who drinks too much, drives his Corvette through the suburbs at 152 miles an hour, and crashes into a woman’s car so forcefully, she and her dog are incinerated.
Vegas is, we are, a city of risk takers.
There is very little about Suzy’s death in the papers. No long-written features of what was really lost. Just the facts. Vigils and services, viewings. Arraignments, trials and detectives. There is little public confirmation of what Isaiah’s family is going through, that Isaiah was in coma. That the doctors were sure he would never make the night, and the next night, the ones after. Until he woke up, breathed his own breath, and asked for Suzy, over and over and over.
He is agitated. Agitated is a good sign.
Suzy was 21. She leaves behind her little girl, the one on my shoulder, Auroya. Auroya is 5 months old, blind and developmentally disabled. Suzy was pregnant with her second child, but the law in Nevada doesn’t count the fetus as a person (We are a pro-choice state with legalized abortion, thankfully) because she was less than 5 months along. So the unborn child is not technically a person that can be lost. But still, like a phantom limb, the baby was real to everyone around Suzy.
This baby existed, but not fully.
Suzy was the child of my dear friend, Laura. Suzy had been through a lot in her young life. I was interviewing her and helping her write her story. I came to love these meetings with her, sometimes at book stores, sometimes at a fast food place. At my book launch, in a room of lit lovers and writing enthusiasts, and adults well-acquainted with the ins and outs of books, Suzy stood up and asked questions about the writing and told me she loved me. It made an impression.
A friend wrote to me this week: “May I ask, was the young girl that was at your book signing downtown and spoke out to thank you? She was young but I remember thinking good for her to speak out in front of the large crowd…”
But this was Suzy, able to express her feelings loudly and unapologetically. Unaware of how to hold back because it was never necessary or part of her fiber. She was exuberant, loved parties, playing loud music in the car, and taking chances - This is, we are, a city of risk takers - maybe even excessively so, and not always in ways that were good for her.
This child had seen some things and survived them. So, of course, it still feels unreal that she did not survive this, too.
I read on the internet a post from a mom who lost her son years before.
She said in a FB post: “Missing your child is a thousand Schrodinger’s cats,” referring to the experiment (that only happened in theory, not practice) that suggests if we put a cat in a box with something that could kill it, like poison, and seal the box, we won’t be able to know if the cat is alive or dead. The cat exists in a place of possibility, it exists as potentially alive and equal parts potentially dead.
“You’re awake but also dreaming. You’re whole, and missing parts. You’re alive and likewise not so. You’re the worst hate you’ve ever heard of, and you’re so in love you’d throw yourself off a cliff to see him again,” she wrote in her post. “These cats will not be resolved, not in 3,285 days, and counting.”
His name was Zaccaria. He had schizophrenia.
On instagram this week, I wrote a post about Suzy’s death and asked: “How do people do this? How do they prepare to bury their children and then take one step, then another. Put on clothes. Take off clothes. Go to work. Eat. Enjoy anything. Will she ever laugh again? Will she hate herself for laughing again? I’m not sure. But I don’t think my friend will ever be the same. None of us will be the same. This is life.”
And this brought a cavalcade of advice on how to support a friend who lost a child and also painful DMs from people I have known for years online, but never knew they had lost a child. (How can I know so much and so little about my internet friends?) I am struck by how many people on line that I know, have known for years, have gone through this experience, and how they came full force into my DMs to school me on how to show up for my friend. Thank you.
This is from one of those on line friends. Her name is Adriana ( This is her wonderful Substack about her son, Jasper). She tells me this about Jasper:
He is magic—from day 1. Curious and adventurous and an astonishingly creative, original thinker. His friends almost always describe him as someone who would lead them to explore — everything from abandoned buildings in Brooklyn to philosophical ideas and how to connect more in relationships. A good person to process with. He was this perplexing combination of cautious and risk-taking. He was acutely sensitive and this rough world was too much for him a lot of the time. He was sweet to his mama through everything—and he went through a whole lot. I’m outraged that he was taken from me, but also he is very much still with me.
He has been gone a year and counting. I notice she writes about him in the present tense. He is missing in some ways. But he is also vibrantly present. He washes over me when I read her words.
I consider the way mothers keep their dead children in this life with us.
“…Your story isn’t over yet, you’re just not here for this part,” Zaccaria’s mom writes on FB.
While Jasper’s mom, on her IG calls herself, “Mama to a ghost” a name that encapsulates the complexity of so much. She is still a mother. She is and will always be Jasper’s mom. This role doesn’t end when we lose our children.
Suzy is no longer here. And yet, I’m thinking, she will be again.
Her mother, my friend, will carry her forward. And those of us around her will help.
______________________
END NOTES:
We tend to see grief as an emotional state, but it is also an atrocious destabilising assault upon the body. So much so that it can feel terminal.
— Nick Cave in an interview for UnHerd talking about grief after the death of his son, Arthur.
Thanks to Zaccaria’s mom, Laura P, for turning me on to this Nick Cave piece about grief, after the death of his son, Arthur. And thanks to Laura and Adriana for allowing me to share a bit about their mothering and their beautiful children.
Love your people.
Thank you, as always, for reading. xo Kim
I had a full term stillborn and never think of it as losing a child. Maybe denial or maybe the hierarchy of grief. Please let us know how we can help Laura and Isaiah and Auroya.
Sending so much love to Laura, Laura, Adriana and Nick. I’m a bereaved mom of 22 years. Time and community keep you moving forward but you are forever changed. Currently grieving the grandchildren that never will be.