After losing their firstborn son, Isaac, in July 2015, Steven and Gloria Kimmel wanted to do something special as a tribute to their sweet boy.
“Isaac was diagnosed with (spinal muscular atrophy) SMA Type 1 when he was six months old. It was right after Thanksgiving,” Gloria says. “We were told to take him home and love him as much as we could, as the disease, at that time, was terminal.”
Gloria Kimmel
The couple was able to get Isaac into a clinical trial for a new SMA drug, which initially proved to help, but the tiny patient eventually suffered from a collapsed lung. He spent three weeks in the ICU before his final two “beautiful weeks” at home with his parents. He was 14 months old.
“The grief that comes with losing a child is unimaginable,” Gloria says. “I don’t know how we made it through the drive home from the hospital without him, but we did. I don’t know how I made it through the viewing and funeral without my broken heart ceasing to beat in my chest, but I did.”