IRVINE – It was two years after her three-month-old son's death in 1980 before Chelle Wilson cried.
Back then, she said, there were no support groups and nobody spoke about the loss. Wilson, then 26, had to care for her husband and her three-year-old son, Ryan, who witnessed his brother's death.
"I was really strong for everybody else," she said.
Saturday morning, Wilson was joined by more than 300 people at the third annual OC Walk to Remember in Irvine.
The walk, to memorialize children lost to pregnancy loss, stillbirths or early infant death, raised more than $10,000 for child loss support services and the Children's Hospital of Orange County memory box program, which gives parents small mementos of the child they lost.
"Instead of being wheeled out of the hospital with your baby, you're wheeled out with a box," said Kristyn von Rotz, 28, the walk co-founder. "That's all you have of your baby."
The walk was preceded by a memorial service in which Brad Stetson, author of "Tender Fingerprints: A True Story of Loss and Resolution," spoke of the child he lost, and musician Peter Brandon sang "Brand New Wings."
"I guess God needed one little angel / to take care of heavenly things / and though it is hard / I know in my heart / you're flying with brand new wings."
Walk co-founder Lyndsey McLaughlan closed the memorial service by reading the names of more than 80 babies who were being remembered. Then the 5K walk began.
Von Rotz was 25 years old and 19 weeks pregnant when her doctor told her and her husband their son would not survive past birth due to an extremely rare brain abnormality. At five months, von Rotz gave birth to Joseph. He died one minute later.
"It's not just you lose your baby, you lose all your dreams of becoming a mother," she said.
Von Rotz could not hold a baby in her arms again until the birth of her daughter, Leah, now 2. She now has another son, Evan, six months. But she says she doesn't see her children as replacing her first child.
The walk "is my way of showing how much I love and care about him as much as I do for my living children."
It was 27 years ago that Wilson's second son, Randy, died of sudden infant death syndrome.
Wilson stayed home while her parents decided on a cemetery and made funeral arrangements. "At 26, you don't know anything about burying a child," Wilson said. "As a parent, you're not supposed to be burying your children."
Even today, speaking about her lost son brings tears to her eyes. "I feel he's my guardian angel and carries me through," she said.
As Peter Brandon sang the lyrics to "Brand New Wings," families passed tissues to each other and held hands.
The goal of the walk, von Rotz said, is to have a comfort system among parents.
There's a hidden bond among those who have lost a child, she said.
"You don't have to explain, you just understand each other."
Contact the writer: 949-262-3454 or etorres@ocregister.com
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