10
Loading video...
By Alyce Collins and Kate Miller
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
When the alarm went off on October 7, 2024, Eric and I woke up and immediately complained about how tired we felt after a long weekend. As always, Eric got out of bed and walked down the hallway to wake up our youngest daughters, Grace and Jill. They were the only two still living with us, as our older children, Isabelle, Alex and Olivia, had already moved out.
I stayed in bed, just listening to the sounds of our normal morning routines.
“Good morning, Gracetopher,” I heard Eric call out. He knocked on Grace’s bedroom door, but when she did not answer, he tried again.
Read More on My Turn
He opened the door and remembered that she decided to sleep in Olivia’s room while she was away at college. Those two were inseparable, so Grace had really been missing her.
...
Eric turned around and went to Olivia’s room across the hall. He knocked and, when there was no answer, opened the door.
As soon as he did, I heard him call out, “Kate, she’s dead. Oh my God, Grace is dead.”
That was the moment our lives were irredeemably shattered.
I jumped out of bed and ran down the hallway. My mind could not understand the words Eric just said. But when I reached the room, I saw Eric standing beside Grace. She looked like she was sound asleep, but her coloring told a different story.
Eric was already on the phone with 911, and they instructed him to perform CPR. He did everything he could for her and did not stop until the paramedics arrived and moved him out of the way. Looking back, Eric and I were clearly in shock. We were not screaming or crying, we were simply focused on doing whatever might help our girl.
The truth is, we knew Grace was gone as soon as we saw her. Still, we held on to the smallest shred of hope.
After they had done all they could, one of the EMTs told us that our beautiful 17-year-old daughter was gone.
...
We took turns going into the bedroom to sit with Grace and say our final goodbyes. We whispered our love to her, held her hands and kissed her cheeks. As our last act of physically parenting Grace in our home, I kissed her cheek and Eric covered her with the blanket. Together, we made sure our girl was ready for what came next.
‘We Had to Figure Out Who We Are Now’
Our priority was reaching our three older children.
Olivia, 19 at the time, was away at college; Alex, who was 20, was living with his girlfriend three hours away, and Isabelle, then 25, was living alone two hours away. So, Eric drove around the state collecting our children, while I stayed home with Jill and tried to understand what happened.
We were just trying to keep parenting while our own worlds were collapsing.
...
Grace had been seeing a pediatric cardiologist for five years and she had a history of syncope and tachycardia. Her cause of death was listed as history of cardiac arrhythmia. What we believe is that an electrical problem in her heart caused it to stop while she was sleeping.
The days immediately after Grace died were filled with shock, confusion and unbearable sadness. We had no comprehension of the size or complexity of losing a child. Everything we knew, including our understanding of who we were and what our future looked like, disappeared.
When you lose your child, people immediately begin asking you to make decisions. You have to plan a wake and funeral, select pictures to display, decide what your child will wear and choose food to serve. Another task was writing Grace’s obituary, but how do you possibly fit the life, dreams and unrealized future of a 17-year-old into a few paragraphs?
The day of Grace’s funeral was the day she and I were scheduled to visit Michigan State University for a campus tour. That is what those early days were like—every moment contained another reminder of what we were supposed to be doing.
...
Grief has affected every member of our family differently.
For Eric and me, the grief has been all-consuming. Sometimes it is emotional, sometimes mental, sometimes physical, and often it is all three at once. We take it day by day. When a day is too much, we take it hour by hour. When an hour is too much, we take it minute by minute. When even a minute feels impossible, we take it breath by breath.
We had to figure out who we are now. We are still the parents of five children, but one of them is dead.
We also had to decide whether to continue living in the house where Grace died. Leaving felt like abandoning her, but staying felt like we might never move again. There was no right choice.
We ultimately moved to Sugar Island, not because we wanted to leave Grace behind, but because we needed somewhere we had a chance of learning how to keep living while carrying her with us.
‘We Lost The Person She Would Have Become’
Not only did we lose Grace, but we lost our future with her.
As parents, we spent 17 years pouring ourselves into Grace. We taught her, worried about her, encouraged her, argued, laughed and watched her grow. We were so excited to see how that investment of love flourished and all the ways that Grace went out into the world.
We lost the person she would have become, the work she might have done, the places she would have visited, the person she might have married and the children she might have had.
So now, in her absence, we continue to parent Grace in the only ways we can. We advocate for her, fight for answers about what happened and try to make sure that her life is represented honestly. Eric and I often say that we are the keepers of Grace’s legacy. Our job is to make sure that the mark she was meant to leave on the world still gets made.
...
After Grace died, we began talking about how much life she still had left to live. We considered several ways of carrying her forward, and then the idea for the books came to me.
What if we wrote stories that allowed a character, inspired by Grace, to continue having the adventures she should have had? That is how we came up with the Gracie Goes Everywhere books, and in each story, Gracie experiences a new place, event or challenge with her family.
They are not an attempt to rewrite or extend Grace’s life, but Gracie is a fictional character who carries pieces of Grace’s humor, curiosity, determination and spirit into new stories. We cannot give Grace the long life she should have had, but we can make sure the love, kindness and hope she brought into the world don’t disappear.
To any other parents, listen to your children and always pay attention to what they are saying. When a child dies, you revisit everything. You consider failures, arguments and missed opportunities. You also revisit the moments when you got it right, and you will never regret allowing your children to have a meaningful seat at the table of your family’s life.
Give them agency and a voice to shape the life you share. Grace knew that she belonged in our family as a complete person, not simply as a child expected to follow along.
We want people to know Grace as more than a tragedy. She was not simply a 17-year-old girl who died unexpectedly. She was funny and smart. She was here and she still matters.
Kate Miller, 49, resides in Sugar Island, Michigan, with her husband Eric Miller, 57. After losing Grace on October 7, 2024, they continue to honor Grace’s legacy through the Gracie Goes Everywhere books, and through their social media channels (@graciegoeseverywhere).
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Charlotte Nisbet and Emma Lee-Sang
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines