After mourning the loss of her stillborn son, Valerie Watts sold his crib at a yard sale. A week later, the buyer returned it.
Valerie had been eagerly anticipating her baby’s arrival, but her joy turned to sorrow when she gave birth to a stillborn boy. “All week, I knew,” Watts reflected. “He wasn’t moving as much. I was very nervous.” Baby Noah’s umbilical cord got pinched in the womb, ending his life before it began. Unable to part with the crib, Watts kept it as a painful reminder.
At a yard sale, Gerald Kumpula noticed the crib and wanted to purchase it. “When he asked me if I was selling that, that he made benches, I hesitated,” Watts admitted. Kumpula, unaware of the crib’s story, learned from his wife that the baby had passed.
Touched, Kumpula returned the crib as a bench. “I started crying instantly,” Watts said. The bench, made from the crib, now serves as a bittersweet reminder, offering solace to the grieving parents.
