Foundation honors babies who 'soar'
The Glendale Star, December 28, 2000
by Carolyn Dryer, Managing Editor

While many families were opening gifts with all of their children on Christmas, there are a few mothers and fathers who were thinking about the gifts they were not opening with the children they lost.

Linda Schmidt and her husband, Bruce, are building a home in the Arrowhead area for their family and two surviving children. Joanne Cacciatore and her husband, David Garard, celebrated with three of their four children. One, Cheyenne, died moments before birth in July 1994, but Cacciatore assures everyone that her baby "soars" with the angels.

The pain was almost unbearable, Cacciatore said, and she felt she had nowhere to turn.

"The day she actually died was not the worst of it," Cacciatore said.

Months later, Cacciatore was down to 92 pounds. She couldn't eat, sleep or take care of her surviving children. She prayed to God to make her go to sleep and never wake up.

Schmidt gave birth to a healthy boy she and her husband named Sklyer Oct. 25, 1999, the same day as Schmidt's grandmother's birthday. Skyler died 10 weeks later but the Schmidt's had to wait four months for pathologists to determine the cause of death - interstitial viral pneumonia. During that uncertain four-month period, Schmidt said she did not know if what she was thinking was normal.

Cacciatore found Compassionate Friends first and although the organization for grieving parents and other survivors of family deaths helped her cope, she sought the companionship of others who had lost infants and toddlers.

"There are some unique differences to losing a 35-year-old child and an infant," Cacciatore said.

When parents who had lost older children would talk about their child, Cacciatore said she felt like "every day was a gift and I felt I received the ultimate rip-off." Cacciatore had no memories watching her child laugh or cry or take her first step. And one of the most frustrating experiences Cacciatore had following her daughter's death was learning there would be no birth certificate issued. Cheyenne was not born alive so she was not born alive, so she was not considered to be born at all. Yet, Cacciatore had a death certificate, had to make funeral arrangements and had to bury her child.

Determined to make a change in her life, Cacciatore created M.I.S.S. Foundation, Mothers in Sympathy and Support. There are three tenets of the organization: First, educate professionals.

"It's their ethical responsibility to know the resources for a family when a loved one has died." Cacciatore said.

Second, provide support for the family unit.

"Each person in the family unit has to cope with a child's death," Cacciatore said.

Third, Reduce the risk.

" A lot of people don't understand 'healthy babies, healthy mommies," Cacciatore said.

The M.I.S.S. Foundation has group to the point that Cacciatore now receives 250 e-mail letters a day, she said. M.I.S.S. now includes The Kindness Project, which Cacciatore started in November 1997. Random Acts of Kindness cards are part of the outreach to the community. Parents of children who have died perform random acts of kindness in the name of their children and leave a card for those who receive the kind act.

One of the most touching acts was performed by one of the M.I.S.S. members last month, Cacciatore said, when she donated 13 inches of her hair to make wigs for kids with cancer. The member did it in memory of her son, Dawson.

Schmidt met Cacciatore at a Compassionate Friends meeting and has become active in M.I.S.S. Schmidt, an advertising and desktop publishing professional, publishes a 32-page booklet called "Passages" which will be passed out at the summer 2001 conference for parents who have lost their children.

"At first, I didn't see the positives until I started reaching out to other people," Schmidt said.

It happened when the Schmidts were living in the small gated Arrowhead community called The Enclave. A few months ago, a couple that lived on the street over from the Schmidts lost one of their twins. The Schmidts talked with the couple and shared their loss. It was the Schmidts who dressed the child and went to the cemetery to console the couple. It was the Schmidts who gave the couple the ideas about creating memorabilia to keep in honor of their child.

"It was kind of therapeutic to me," Schmidt said.

If there are parents who have lost their children and are looking for understanding and someone to share their grief, Schmidt and Cacciatore encourage you to seek support and help from the M.I.S.S. Foundation.

And because it is a non-profit organization, M.I.S.S. accepts tax-deductible donations to help low-income parents with funeral costs. The Glendale 20-30 Active Club recently donated $2,000 to the Kids in Sympathy and Support.

To learn more about the M.I.S.S. Foundation and its associated groups, write to: P.O. Box 5333, Peoria, Arizona 85385. Or visit the foundation's web site at www.missfoundation.org.

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