On February 2, 2014, our 16-month-old son, Kelby, passed away. This perfectly healthy little boy died while he was sleeping with no explanation at all. Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC) had become our reality.
Kelby was such a blessing and joy in our lives. He was our rainbow baby. I lost my first pregnancy one week before I reached my second trimester. Kelby was your typical little boy who loved trucks, dirt, Mickey Mouse, his dog Sly, his babysitter Miss Laura and his mommy and daddy. This precious, beautiful boy had an amazingly bright light that shone from within. He was so expressive, animated and overwhelmingly loved.
When Kelby died, my husband and I had no idea how to move forward. We lost our joy, our light and our hearts. Overnight, we went from being a family of three, to being a couple again and we didn’t know how to navigate this world without our baby. We were lost. About six months before he died, I saw a post on Facebook from a mother who lost her son who was around Kelby’s age. She was a friend of a friend and lived in my home state of Arkansas. I remember seeing her post and thinking, “I don’t know what I would do if I lost Kelby." Now that that nightmare had become my reality, I had to speak with her. She was so kind and led me to the organization that had been her saving grace – the SUDC Foundation.
Within minutes of speaking with Laura Crandall, co-founder of the SUDC Foundation, I knew the Foundation could help me. Laura explained to me how little was known about SUDC at that time and gave me the necessary steps to take to preserve Kelby’s DNA. By taking those steps, my family is now a part of a research study that is searching for answers to SUDC. Laura also guided us to other families who were on their own journeys of child loss from SUDC, and now those mothers are my soul sisters.
I went to the first ever SUDC conference in New York City, where I learned even more about the thief that stole my baby. As more and more families join the heartbreaking world of child loss to SUDC, the Foundation has added more and more support for those families. It provides families with knowledge to help understand the medical aspect of SUDC, connections with other families, grief support, as well as beautiful opportunities to honor our children lost to SUDC.
The SUDC Foundation is near and dear to my heart, and I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to run the TCS New York City Marathon as one of its fundraising entries. I have never felt like running a marathon was part of my journey. But when I saw the SUDC newsletter in March explaining that the SUDC Foundation received a few entries for the NYC Marathon, I felt a strong urge to contact the Foundation about signing up. It was almost as if Kelby was telling me, “Mama, you need to do this." After discussing the marathon with my family, I contacted the Foundation and started the process of signing up. I am so blessed to have such a loving, supportive family who is willing to sacrifice their time with me, so that I can follow this new dream and train for the marathon.
It is comforting to be a part of a foundation that is doing everything it can to bring awareness of SUDC to families, research why this happens, create a uniform process for first responders and medical teams, help families cope, and to fight so no other family will lose a child to SUDC. This is a club that no person wants to be a part of, but the SUDC foundation supports our families in ways we never knew we needed. Thank you for supporting the SUDC Foundation and helping me in this journey. It is a privilege to run in honor and in memory of Kelby William Alan Oddson.
