Lamar Odom On Why He Didn’t Cry For 3 Years After Baby’s Death
Lamar Odom | Page Six
Former basketball star Lamar Odom has detailed dealing with the loss of his baby son’s death in his memoir “Darkness To Light.”
Odom lost his third child he had with ex Liza Morales in June 2006 when the baby was just six months old.
The reality TV star revealed that he didn’t cry until three years later because crying would make it real and he wanted his baby to live badly.
The baby boy Jayden was born on December 15, 2005 but died on June 29, 2006.
In the book, Odom explains that Liza’s mother had moved in with them to help care for their three children, Destiney, Lamar Jr and Jayden.
On the morning of the tragedy, Liza had gone to Jayden’s room to check on him. She found him lying still on his stomach, with his blankets undisturbed from the night before.
Though she thought it was unusual that he was lying on his stomach, he looked comfortable and she didn’t want to disturb him so she went downstairs and joined her mother in the kitchen.
But as soon as Liza’s mother asked how Jayden was, she began to panic and ran straight back up to his room.
Lamar writes:
“His face was a dark blue. He wasn’t breathing. Liza screamed hysterically. Liza’s mother, a registered nurse, immediately took Jayden.”
Liza frantically called 911 and an ambulance and fire trucks were dispatched within minutes. Jayden was taken away in an ambulance.
At the time of the incident, Lamar was away in Manhattan and Liza called him to tell him that something had happened to Jayden.
He misunderstood Liza and thought something had happened to his eldest son.
Upon getting to the hospital, he was ushered to a private room where Liza was wrapped in a hospital blanket. All they knew was that doctors were running tests on their son.
He writes:
“Fifteen minutes after I got there, a doctor entered the room and grasped Liza’s hand. There were tears in the doctor’s eyes.
“‘I’m sorry’, she said. ‘As a mother I’ve experienced crib death, too’.
“Crib death. That was the first time I had ever heard that term. I didn’t know what it was. Jayden had died from sudden infant death syndrome.”
Lamar said it took him a long time to come to terms with the awful events. He added:
“It just didn’t make sense to us. How could our baby just die in his crib? This couldn’t be a real thing. I was stunned, numb, almost emotionless. I couldn’t move.
“I did not cry then. Or the next day. I did not cry for Jayden for three years. I thought if I cried it would make it real. I did not cry so that he might live.”
Lamar and Liza later split and he met Khloe Kardashian whom he got married to and also later had a divorce.
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