Mom who cared for comatose daughter for 38 years dies
Posted on Fri, Mar. 07, 2008
BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE
tfigueras@MiamiHerald.com
She never broke her promise.
Kaye O'Bara, who pledged to never leave her then-teenage daughter's side as the girl slipped into a diabetic coma 38 years ago, died at her Miami Gardens home this week -- in the same room she shared with her child, Edwarda, since 1970.
O'Bara, 80, died in her sleep. She had suffered for years from a cardiac illness that dated back to a heart attack in the early 1980s, said her niece Pamela Burdgick.
''We thought she'd outlive us all. The woman was so strong,'' Burdgick said.
The story of O'Bara's steadfast devotion to her child, and her belief that Edwarda's life was not a burden but a blessing, inspired countless visitors who passed by the small one-story O'Bara home over the decades. Well-wishers traveled from as far away as Japan to take part in the annual celebration of Edwarda's birthday -- as did fellow Catholics and others who believed Kaye O'Bara had seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary and sought to pray at the bedside of her sleeping daughter.
Her story also inspired bestselling author Dr. Wayne Dyer to write the book ``A Promise Is A Promise: An Almost Unbelievable Story of a Mother's UnconditionalLove and What It Can Teach Us.''
The title of the book came from the last exchange O'Bara had with her daughter. Edwarda, a diabetic, had come down with the flu shortly before Christmas 1969. Her condition worsened over the next few days, and her parents -- Kaye and husband Joe -- took her to the hospital.
As the frightened girl began to lose consciousness, she turned to her mother and asked: ``Promise you won't leave me, will you, Mommy?''
Kaye O'Bara promised her she wouldn't, and those final words to her daughter became the blueprint for her life: turning her every two hours so her daughter wouldn't develop bedsores, feeding her a mixture of baby food and powdered milk through a tube, administering insulin, playing music, reading books to Edwarda, who was once an avid reader, and keeping a watchful vigil by her bedside in the hope that one day her daughter would come to.
''To me, she's almost awake. Sometimes I think I hear her speak,'' O'Bara once told The Miami Herald. 'She says, `Mom, I'm fine.' Maybe she's not saying anything at all, but I think she's speaking to me.''
Edwarda's younger sister, Colleen O'Bara, says the family will continue to care for her in the family home.
''We never thought of it as a hardship. It just didn't seem out of the ordinary,'' said Colleen, who said she shared in her parents' hope that her sister would ``one day just wake up.''
Colleen O'Bara said she plans on moving from her Pembroke Pines home to help care for Edwarda, a decision she says her mother had hoped to spare her from having to make.
''I always told her I would [care for Edwarda],'' said Colleen, whose son, Richard, is also helping to care for his aunt. ``But it's a hard life, and she didn't want that.''
Government aid would have paid to have Edwarda institutionalized, but there was no question in Joe and Kaye O'Bara's minds that their girl would live out her days at home. The couple shared the duties of caring for her, quickly falling into debt.
Joe O'Bara, then a physical education teacher at Scott Lake Elementary in Northwest Miami-Dade, took up a second job painting houses on weekends and fixing boat motors in his garage. In 1972, he suffered a heart attack and died four years later, leaving his wife the primary caretaker.
Kaye O'Bara -- born Kathryn McCloskey in Johnstown, Pa. -- was herself a schoolteacher who taught at St. Rose of Lima and Notre Dame Academy in North Miami-Dade. She retired the year after Edwarda became comatose, and did her best to survive on Social Security and her husband's pension -- and the generosity of others.
Over the years, the modest O'Bara home attracted visitors from across the world. And each March, without fail, Kaye O'Bara would celebrate her daughter's birthday with a party, often attracting hundreds.
''Everyone who visited the O'Bara home could not help but come away with a deeper faith and understanding of what it is to truly love,'' said Joan Crown, director of the Respect Life ministry for the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami. ``Kaye was a shining example of what it means to be a mother, a teacher and a faithful Catholic. She embraced the teachings of her church and never gave in to the calls of many to end the life of her daughter through euthanasia.''
The story of the O'Bara family generated dozens of headlines and news stories, and was, in recent years juxtaposed with that of the family battle over the fate of another Florida woman, Terri Schiavo.
O'Bara often said she never once considered letting her daughter go, but refrained from judging others who differed.
''What we've tried to do here is create a place of love,'' O'Bara told the Herald in 2005. 'That means more than saying `yes' to the feeding tube or 'no' to the feeding tube.''
She was careful to draw distinction between her daughter and cases such as Schiavo's, saying had Edwarda been a married adult when she slipped into a coma, ``I would have honored her husband's right to make decisions, as next of kin -- just as my parents would have done with my husband, had the same thing happened to me.''
Several years earlier, in a letter to the Herald's editorial page, O'Bara gently expressed her belief that euthanasia was a personal decision, but called Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the physician who advocated doctor-assisted suicide, ``misguided.''
''I know I pray for him every night,'' she wrote.
In 2000, O'Bara received a papal medal from the Roman Catholic Church, an honor bestowed upon her by Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora.
A devout Catholic, O'Bara said she had felt the presence of the Virgin Mary in Edwarda's bedroom, and believed her daughter was not simply sleeping but ''a spiritual being having a human experience.'' It was a belief echoed by others, including the self-help author Dwyer, who penned his book after getting to know the O'Baras.
At least one couple arranged to be married by Edwarda's bedside, a worldwide prayer group devoted to Edwarda now numbers in the thousands. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, wary travelers would stop by the O'Bara home, asking to pray there before boarding a plane.
Kaye O'Bara often posted updates about her family on a website maintained by a longtime family friend.
Her last entry, dated February 2008, read:
``I know a lot of you are waiting for your quarterly letter but I have been ill and really can't afford the stamps.''
Her family and friends said that in recent days she had appeared in relatively fine health, and say that despite her age and illness they were shocked by O'Bara's death.
When the nurse who helps out with Edwarda knocked on the O'Bara door Friday morning, she was alarmed when her knock went unanswered. She summoned the help of neighbors, including Elsie Ferguson, who has lived next door for more than 30 years.
They found O'Bara in the room she shared with Edwarda, snatching brief naps on a small cot in between feedings and other duties.
Ferguson's son, Chaka Ferguson -- who wasn't even born when Edwarda took ill -- grew up with a deep admiration for his next-door-neighbor.
''I always wondered why she kept it up, and one time I asked her that question,'' said Ferguson, a sports copy editor at The Miami Herald.
''She told me she saw this as a sacrifice that was worth it, and that she would always be there for Edwarda,'' he said. ``She kept her promise to the end.''
A funeral Mass for Kaye O'Bara will take place at 10 a.m., Thursday, at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Miami Shores. A Wednesday night viewing will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. at Cofer Kolski Combs Funeral Home, 10931 NE Sixth St.
Instead of flowers the family is asking for donations to defray the cost of Edwarda's care. For information on donating, visit www.edwardaobara.com. Profits from Dyer's book also go to her care.
I cried when i read this. i wonder to myself, could i REALLY do this? do i have that kind of strength to see my daughter in that state day in and day out? idk. but i tell u what, i truly admire mrs. o'bara. she's what angels are made of.
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