When Valarie Watts’ son was stillborn in July, she was devastated. She chose to sell the majority of the things she had purchased in hopes of bringing Noah home while she was still in mourning.
She couldn’t part with the white crib, so she decided not to include it in her yard sale last month. Still, Gerald Kumpula, a retired man, spotted it and pleaded to buy it.
Watts, 28, eventually gave in when she discovered that Gerald, 75, was a craftsman who made benches out of discarded footboards and headboards.
“I was kind of at peace with it because he’d be making something nice,” Watts said. She traded it in for two bucks.
Watts started a conversation with Gerald’s wife Lorene at the sale when she noticed the baby clothes and asked what age Watts’ son was. Watts then shared her heartbreaking story with her.
On the way home, Lorene told Gerald Watts’ story. The Kumpulas, who had fifteen children and multiple grandchildren, knew that Watts was the true owner of the crib. A week later, the two presented Watts a bench made out of the crib.
“It’s beautiful,” Watts remarked in a TODAY.com interview. “I told myself there were still good people in the world.”
Her living room, where she positioned the seat, is a place where she remembers Noah.
“I’m so happy that it’s not just sitting around doing nothing,” the woman exclaimed. Now I can sit in it, hug his bear, and think about him if I need to.
During the latter stages of Watts’s fully developed pregnancy, she saw a reduction in the fetus’s movement. Watts and her fiancé Jimi Hamblin discovered on July 22 that Watts had survived a cesarean delivery despite Noah’s lack of respiration. According to the doctors, Noah was unable to breathe because of a constriction in his umbilical chord.
The Kumpulas were more sensitive to Watts’ suffering than most because their first grandchild had been stillborn.
Gerald stated, “An abandoned crib is a somber reminder.” “A bench functions more as a monument. It’s a part of that awful event, but it’s not a crib—an empty crib—like it would be.
Gerald refused to accept Watts’ offer of payment.
“Being able to assist someone is just pleasant. Helping others is good,” he remar
Watts is getting married to Hamblin this autumn, and they have a 7-year-old daughter named Nevaeh. She claimed that the bench, which is next to a corner bookcase that has pictures, footprints, handprints, and ashes of Noah, is assisting her in overcoming her loss.
