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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Ill-fated tot was ready for Halloween

Hal Whitcher holds onto two of his granddaughters, Savanna, 5 and Christine, 18 mos., while his wife Kayla clears their table at a Jack in the Box restaurant in downtown Spokane after lunch with some of their grandchildren, Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. The two were grandparents to 3-year-old Noah Whitcher, who died in a fire last weekend. The two girls are cousins to Noah. Hal Whitcher said that their family is wracked with every emotion imaginable at the loss of Noah. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
Hal Whitcher holds onto two of his granddaughters, Savanna, 5 and Christine, 18 mos., while his wife Kayla clears their table at a Jack in the Box restaurant in downtown Spokane after lunch with some of their grandchildren, Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. The two were grandparents to 3-year-old Noah Whitcher, who died in a fire last weekend. The two girls are cousins to Noah. Hal Whitcher said that their family is wracked with every emotion imaginable at the loss of Noah. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

“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.



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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