Arrow-right Camera

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

A baby’s final gift

Duru Eroglu is pictured here with her parents, Umut Eroglu and mother Duygu Toygur Eroglu. The parents are from Turkey and were living in Spokane for university studies when their daughter was born Jan. 19 with a brain tumor that took her life.
Photo courtesy of Karin Knapp (Courtesy Forget-me-not)
Rebecca Nappi

Last week, I met a beautiful couple from Turkey, in Spokane for a year doing university studies, whose baby died less than a month after being born. It was a privilege to meet them.

They were surrounded by help and support from many people in Spokane — from Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, from the MISS Foundaiton, from Whitworth and WSU.

Here was the lede of the story (which ran as a sidebar with my main story in the post below):

Baby Duru, born with a malignant brain tumor, was a few days shy of 1 month old when she died Feb. 16 in her mother’s arms, with her father close by. Her parents, Umut Eroglu and Duygu Toygur Eroglu, are from Turkey.In their country, young parents with dying babies are not encouraged to be with their babies as death approaches.“There is a belief that if you attach too much, you will be sad too much,” mom Duygu said.

Read the rest.

(Photo courtesy of Karin Knapp)

* This story was originally published as a post from the blog "EndNotes." Read all stories from this blog