I Have a Sister...Her Name Is Kaye Lynette

 By Marilyn Moore

“I have a sister, ten years younger than me.  She lived only four days.  Her name is Kaye Lynette.”

These are words I have hardly ever spoken.  In those conversations when you’re meeting someone for the first time, in class, at a conference, at a party, in the neighborhood, and you’re getting to know one another, and you ask about where you’re from, what do you enjoy beyond work, where do you like to travel, tell me about your family…you know, those conversations.  When asked about siblings, I always tell them I have a brother, Randy, who is one year younger than me, and that he and my sister-in-law live on the family farm, and I’m so glad the farm is still in the family.  

But I stop there.  I don’t say that I have a younger sister, who I never met, who died after living four days.  It seems a little too intimate, a little too personal, to drop in a getting-to-know you conversation, and then, it just never comes up.  I don’t know if that’s true with other adults who had a sibling who died at a very young age, I just know it’s true for me. 

Until earlier this year, when a friend was interviewing me for some writing that she’s doing, and she asked about those growing-up years, where were you born, where did you go to school, what did your parents do, what about the rest of your family.  I told her about Randy, and then I paused, and I told her about Kaye Lynette.  

Since that conversation, I think a lot about Kaye Lynette. I remember how excited our family was before she was born.  We didn’t know gender; I don’t know if anyone knew gender in 1959.  Randy and I knew that one of us would be sharing a bedroom with the new baby, and that seemed just fine.  A day or two after Christmas, Mom went to the hospital, Uncle Jim and Aunt Gertie came to stay with us until Mom and the new baby came home, Aunt Gertie made plate-sized pancakes for breakfast, Dad came home from the hospital and told us that Kay Lynette had been born, and anticipation was high.  

Until something seemed not quite right.  When you’re ten, you don’t notice a lot about adult behavior, at least, I didn’t, but I had the sense that not all was well.  I overheard my dad say something to Aunt Gertie that mom was fine, but something with the baby wasn’t fine.  The mood in the house shifted from joy to watchfulness.  And then, on the fourth day, after my dad called from the hospital, Uncle Jim told us that Kaye Lynette had died, and that Mom would be coming home soon. I think now how much my parents must have trusted Uncle Jim and Aunt Gertie to tell us that sad news.

My mom was in good health while pregnant.  She had regular prenatal visits.  She didn’t smoke, didn’t drink alcohol, had a healthy diet.  Kaye Lynette was a full-term baby, not a preemie.  She died because of an Rh factor blood incompatibility; she was Rh+, and my mom was Rh-.  It’s not always fatal, but sometimes it is…or was, then. Today, my mom would have received an RhIG  (RhoD immune globulin) medication in the last few weeks of her pregnancy; the RhIG  protects against antibodies building up that attack the fetus’s red blood cells.  Today, babies like Kaye Lynette are healthy births, thanks to the science that developed that treatment, about ten years after Kaye Lynette was born, and died. 

I remember saying to my mom after she came home from the hospital, in all my ten-year-old certainty, that she could have another baby.  Mom hugged me, and then told me that no, she could not.  She knew that each pregnancy of an Rh- woman carrying an Rh+ baby is increasingly dangerous, and Rh+ is the dominant blood type.  Statistically, another pregnancy would likely have another sad outcome.  

Because 1959 was a time when children were not allowed to visit in hospitals, Randy and I never met our sister; we never saw her.  Her funeral service was the day after she died, on New Year’s Day.  Children didn’t go to funerals then, either.  I have no idea what the service was like.  When we went back to school on January 4, there was no counselor, no grief counselor, no Mourning Hope.  I’m sure our teachers knew what had happened, as did the whole community, because in small towns everyone knows everything.  But I don’t remember that anyone ever talked about it.  I do remember that our house felt very sad for a long time….

I wonder about Kaye Lynette.  What did she look like?  There were no photos of babies who died, no plaster casts of handprints and footprints.  Did she have the dark flashing Premer eyes from my mom’s side of the family?  Did she have the dimples from my dad’s side of the family?  Was her hair straight or curly?  Black or brown?  Maybe a hint of red?  As she grew up, would she have been a musician, an athlete, a writer, a farmer, a scientist?  She would be 64 now.  Would we be close sisters?  Would she be a grandmother?  A whole life, a whole story, not lived beyond four days.  

Except, of course, her life, brief as it was, and her death, sad as it was, became a part of my story, a part of our family’s story, said out loud or not.  I remember many times on December 28 my mom remarking that the day was Kaye Lynette’s birthday; I so regret not asking her to tell me what she remembered of her.  I remember reading about the development of the RhIG medication and realizing what an impact it would have on moms and babies from that point on. And as an Rh- person myself, I’m glad to be a blood donor. Because my blood type is O-, I’m a universal donor; my blood is safe for anyone, regardless of their blood type.  Sometimes when the Blood Bank calls, they tell me they have a surgery scheduled the next day for a baby, and ask if I can donate.  I always say yes.  

I wonder what it felt like to be Kaye Lynette.  I think babies experience emotions of fear, distress, security, and comfort…and perhaps others.  They know what it’s like to be in pain, to be hungry, to be hot or cold, to be comfortable, to be fed, to be held, to be safe.  I hope that in her four days of life, and in that moment when she “slipped the surly bonds of earth, and touched the face of God,” that she knew that she was loved, beyond words, beyond measure.  

“I have a younger sister, who died when she was four days old.  Her name is Kaye Lynette.”  Words I may say more often.