A boy who lived six days taught his family how to love without timelines, and they honor him by carrying both the hurt and the hope, giving what they can because he gave them everything. They met at California MetalFest in 2010, where he played guitar and she watched from the crowd. It felt almost like love at first glance, the fast click of two people who never stopped talking after that day. A week later, they were a couple; a year later, they got engaged and married in 2012. Kids were part of the plan, though maybe later. Life had other ideas. Their first daughter arrived, then two more children and a son, each adding noise and joy to a home stretching to fit. By the time their fourth was toddling, she still felt one more child belonged with them. She even joked they would welcome a December baby boy.
Sterling came a year earlier than her prediction, born at home just after midnight on December 5, 2019. This was her most uncomplicated pregnancy, her third home birth, with an OB and midwives alongside. A strange dream at thirty weeks had rattled her, a tiny boy with a head full of hair in a NICU, but the labor was calm and redemptive, a healing after old trauma. He arrived in warm water and soft light, cried, and settled into her arms. Perfect Apgar scores. A beautiful exam. He ate, slept, and curled into every hug like he wanted to be held tight forever.
Twenty-four hours later, his breathing changed. They rushed to the ER. Tests were clear, yet he worsened. In the NICU, he seized, stopped breathing, needed a tube to help him, and his hands were required to bring his heart back. His numbers didn’t make sense. They searched and still had no answers. She noticed one thing that did not need a test: his heart rate lifted when she spoke. He knew her voice. Five days in, blood work showed an ammonia level off the charts. He was airlifted to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to see a metabolic team.
On the helicopter, she heard doctors say the ammonia had already injured his brain. The name finally came: Ornithine Transcarbamylase deficiency, a rare disorder that keeps the body from clearing ammonia. The toxin had flooded his system, shutting down what a newborn needs most. On December 11 at 10:12 p.m., six days old, Sterling died in their arms. She watched the color leave his face and felt, for a moment, as if her own spirit went with him. There was aching peace alongside the break: his suffering was over.
People imagine child loss and think in stages and finish lines. She learned grief is not like that. It does not end; it shifts. Mourning is what changes on the outside; grief keeps living inside. She stopped fearing death and, in the early days, even welcomed it. Nights on the bathroom floor were prayers to disappear. Slowly, she chose to stay. Therapy mattered. Community mattered more. Friends and strangers showed up with meals, gift cards, bill help, flights for family, texts, and prayers. The flood of support softened over time, as it naturally does, which added loneliness to the weight. She learned to find the people who could say his name, hear the truth, and sit with it.
Small mercies became anchors: grace for others who mean well but miss the mark, boundaries when she needed them, and grace for herself when dishes stacked up or joy felt impossible. She learned to carry two things simultaneously: the constant ache and a genuine love for life. They welcomed another baby, Eisley. Sterling’s absence did not shrink; their capacity to hold sorrow and hope grew larger. They chose to give Sterling’s gifts forward. The morning after he died, they agreed to donate his heart tissue. Two tiny valves were recovered and given to two children who needed them. Later, she pumped and shared hundreds of ounces of milk with a single mother whose baby was born around the same time as Sterling.
None of this made the loss worth it; she would trade every good thing to have him back. Since she cannot, she keeps finding ways to light someone else’s dark room with his name. She tells people who want to help that no act is too small: a message, a meal, a moment of presence. If you think of a grieving parent, reach out. Speak the child’s name. Sit with what cannot be fixed. That kind of community held her together when she felt like falling apart.
