Ill-fated tot was ready for Halloween
“Noah, come here please,” Kayla Whitcher says to a rambunctious little boy on Monday. Then she pauses. “I mean Liam.”
Another of Whitcher’s grandsons, 3-year-old Noah Whitcher, died in a Hillyard house fire on Friday night.
The little boy was visiting his aunt’s home, as he had many times. He wanted to stay overnight because there was a Halloween party planned on Saturday, his paternal grandparents said.
Noah was going to dress up as The Flash.
Instead, he died huddled on a bed with his aunt’s dog Morey by his side, and his favorite teddy bear.
Morey, a dachshund-Chihuahua mix, “loved Noah from the minute he met Noah to the minute he left,” Kayla Whitcher said on Monday.
“I keep saying, ‘Is this a dream, am I going to wake up from this?’ ” Whitcher said Monday. “I feel like something is missing. I know something is missing.”
Whitcher and her husband, Hal Whitcher, agreed to meet at a Jack in the Box restaurant in downtown Spokane, surrounded by four of their remaining six grandchildren.
Liam, a blond, inquisitive 2-year-old, was Noah’s best friend, calling his older cousin “Doah.” The two boys loved Batman, video games and sword fighting using tree branches. Noah was excited to start preschool next year.
“It’s hard to explain to a 2-year-old that he’s not here anymore,” Kayla Whitcher said/Eli Frankovich, SR. More here.