Healing with help
By Mary Beth P. Adomaitis, Special to the Independent
H.B. Independent, February 20, 2003

After the devastating loss of her son, Blake, three years ago, Katie Hodge started a foundation to support parents who have lost a child when she moved to Surf City.

Three years ago, Katie Hodge was a single mother living in Phoenix, Ariz., working to support her son, Blake, and studying elementary special education.

But on Feb. 18, 2000, all of that changed.

On her way to the grocery store after picking up Blake, 17 months, from day care, Hodge's car was struck by another that had run a red light.

"We were at a stoplight making a left-hand turn," Hodge, 28, said. "We were hit by a driver coming in the opposite direction."

Blake was killed instantly, and Hodge suffered a severe traumatic brain injury.

The woman driving the car was cited for running a red light and causing an accident, but was never charged for a more serious crime.

"She was found to be driving 55 mph, and she left no skid marks," said Hodge, who moved to Huntington Beach last summer to start her life over with her new husband, Chris. "In Arizona, there is no law for what she did. We couldn't prove it was a criminal act. She wasn't intoxicated or under the influence of drugs."

The case was finally settled out of court more than two years after her son's death. But the incident has left scars, Hodge said.

Hodge, who was hospitalized for four weeks after the accident, was in a coma for seven days. She was temporarily paralyzed on her right side.

"I had to relearn everything," she said. "Everything I had done up until then was based on this beautiful little boy. I really did lose everything -- my son and my ability to walk and take care of myself. I couldn't live by myself. I couldn't work and I couldn't go to school. I lost everything."

After being released from the hospital, Hodges spent another six weeks in outpatient physical therapy and, later on, three months in a neurological rehabilitation unit in Phoenix.

COPING

Hodge learned of her son's death seven days after the crash, when she woke from the coma. "I can still remember being in this darkness and not being able to move," she recalled. "I kept waiting for someone to come in and tell me about Blake. And then this very deep, dark feeling fell over me and I realized that it was never going to happen. I knew I wasn't ever going to wake up from this nightmare."

Hodge found a way to help with her healing by becoming involved with the Mothers in Sympathy and Support Foundation. Its founder, Joanne Cacciatore-Gerard, whose daughter, Cheyenne, was born still in 1994, came to visit Hodge in the hospital after the accident.

"She is a wonderful person and I was such a big part of MISS in Phoenix," Hodge said.

But after the case was settled, Hodge wanted a change and moved to Southern California.

"I wanted out of Phoenix," she said. "It was getting too big, too scary. And when someone can run a red light and pay no consequences -- I just had to leave."

So Hodge started a local chapter of the Mothers in Sympathy and Support Foundation in Huntington Beach -- the first of its kind in Orange County and one of about a half-dozen in California.

"This is who I am," she said. "Wherever I would go, there were babies dying and nobody was there to support or help."

For now, the group meets in Hodge's home and there are only a few members. But she hopes that will change.

"I want those [family members of deceased children] to know that for whatever reason, we all keep waking up the next day. We may not like it. This is the only thing we can do to honor our children," Hodge said.

The foundation is a nonprofit, volunteer-based organization committed to providing emergency support to families in crisis after the death of a baby or young child from any cause. There are local support group chapters all over the country.

The group's Web site, www.missfoundation.org, is filled with a variety of information for grieving families including online forums and chat rooms for members who want to get to know each other, ideas on planning a memorial service for a deceased child, a newsletter and other resources.

"The important thing is that families in the Huntington Beach area who have experienced the death of a child, whether last week or 10 years ago, know that they have somewhere to go -- somewhere to share, remember, heal and a place to help others," Cacciatore-Gerard said.

As for Hodge, her recovery from the accident will be a lifelong struggle.

"I had a good amount of brain injury," she said. "I still struggle with my short-term memory."

She also has trouble with her balance and an altered sensation on the right side of her body.

"I have to write everything down," she said. "I was a waitress at one time taking an order for eight and never wrote anything down. For this to happen overnight and instantly is very odd. These are things you never think of."

Hodge is back in school and plans to be a massage therapist, a field she recently started working in.

"I like it a lot," she said. "It helps me. It's another way for me to heal people. But being a mother was the most wonderful gift I've ever had."