‘You don’t talk about it ... nobody talks about it’
It was Lesley who found Jaya, lying cold and still in her crib. Having worked in the ER, Lesley was accustomed to death. She’d broken terrible news to families before, performed CPR on patients — even other infants — but it all meant nothing that afternoon in the rented beach house.
“To try to work through the finding her and when it’s your own daughter and having to do CPR on her . ... And I knew. I knew when I saw her. I knew she was already dead and there was no point, but I couldn’t NOT do it either.”
To Lesley’s relief, a friend at the house quickly took over her desperate resuscitation attempts. Rohit, who had been at the beach with the other families and their children, arrived back at the beach house just as the first ambulance arrived, the first in what would soon be a small army of first responders.
Lesley is grateful that they, too, recognized the hopelessness of the situation and spared Jaya the indignities of intubation, defibrillator shocks and IV drips.
“They put an ECG on, checked her heart, saw it wasn’t beating and stopped it there,” she said. “I’m so thankful for that because she didn’t need her little body violated that way.”
But there was one more thing to do. Lesley had stripped Jaya to just her diaper to do the CPR and now watched as the paramedics wrapped her tiny body in towels and placed her in the ambulance.
She and Rohit searched for a tiny onesie they’d bought, one that had a silkscreened acorn and the words “I will be mighty.” Then they dressed her one last time.
“I just didn’t want her to be cold,” Lesley said, her voice trailing off into tears.
The family spent four more days in North Carolina, attending to the formalities of death. They got a death certificate and proof of cremation. Oddly, they were advised to send Jaya’s ashes home to Ottawa by parcel service as an easier and safer way than carrying an urn in their luggage.
More than 300 people came to Jaya’s memorial service in Ottawa, most of whom had never met her. Strangers who read Rohit’s essay online reached out to support them.
“We’ve heard from people who’ve had all kinds of losses,” Rohit said. “There were people I’ve known from work or school, and I had no idea they’d suffered some kind of loss. Then something like this happens and they reach out privately, with a lot of courage, just to say ‘I’ve lost somebody. I’d like to help you through the stages of this.’ ”
The couple have read books about bereavement and attended grief counselling sessions through Roger’s House.
“You don’t realize how many people are still grieving a child that they may have lost years ago,” Lesley said. “You don’t talk about it. Nobody talks about it. After six months, people will say, ‘Oh, Rohit and Lesley … they had a baby a few years back that died. But for us, it’s still going to be ‘Jaya’ … not ‘a baby who died.’”
In his essay, Rohit offers tips to friends on what they and other grieving couples need: “Keep socializing with us, even if we didn’t normally before. We may not be able to accept every invite, but give it a couple of tries and we’ll do it,” he wrote.
And: “Lesley and I worry that we’ll feel alone and isolated in our grief in the weeks, months, and years to come. Please save some kind words, thoughts, deeds, and love for us, and check in with us periodically, even if you have to put up with a few more tears over a few more years than you expected.”
The couple are bracing for other, unforeseen events that they know will trigger grief. Like when Lesley arrived at the airport last week for a previously planned trip to Halifax to see her parents.
“When I checked in, Jaya was still on the reservation. She was supposed to be my ‘lap infant.’
“There are going to be anniversaries we anticipate are going to be sad, like the first day of school. But there will also be things that we don’t expect. Maybe 10 years from now, maybe a little girl goes by and we tear up because ‘I wonder if she would have looked like that?’ ”
Meanwhile, the couple draw strength from tiny gestures — one of Rohit’s friends and co-workers planted a garden in Jaya’s honour in New Mexico; Lesley’s father’s gardening club is planting an oak tree for Jaya in Halifax. While in North Carolina, the first responders offered help and support as they navigated through the U.S. red tape.
And they draw strength from Navin, who inherited one of Jaya’s stuffed toys, a frog named Ribbit.
“Just the other day we were at the park, and I was teaching him how to roll down a hill,” Rohit said. “And part way down I teared up because I felt that I wasn’t ever going to get to teach Jaya the same thing, to roll down the hill with her. But I still had to keep rolling down the hill for and with him. That made me feel better.”