- November 20, 2024
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A slideshow with pictures of 2-year-old Noah Lynch laughing and smiling scrolled during the service celebrating his life Saturday, Jan. 4. His father, Brian Lynch, spoke last.
According to one guest and family friend, Bernadette Thorn, the grieving father asked everybody to let go of their grudges, not to let it affect their lives and to appreciate their children every day.
The celebration, which was held at Spirit Life Church, in Bunnell, was standing-room-only.
Noah died in his sleep Dec. 29. An autopsy report concluded that his was death due to lack of oxygen, according to the toddler’s mother Brittany Licari.
“He was healthy and happy,” the grieving mother said. “He had no health problems, no medical history. They did every testing and are sending it off for genetic testing. They don’t understand. We don’t understand.”
In the time of tragedy, Thorn, who is the owner of Lil' Feet Repeat, in Palm Coast, created a fundraising page on fundrazr.com to help her friends with funeral costs.
“I made it with all the love I could,” Thorn said. “Having the financial burden, along with dealing with the loss of a 2-year-old is something that I didn’t want for them.”
Thorn had seen fundraising pages before, but he underestimated their potential social media reach.
“I just kept sharing on Facebook,” she said. “Then friends of friends were sharing, and now it has gone
cross-county. People in California, Iowa, everywhere — people donating that don’t even know Brittany.”
As of Monday, the site had donations from more than 100 contributors totaling close to $6,000, which covered all the costs for the family to celebrate Noah’s life.
Flagler County businesses Mezzaluna, Joe’s New York Pizza and Dave’s A-1 Auto also made significant monetary contributions, in addition to the restaurants donating food for the life celebration.
“This is so helpful to Brian and I trying to prepare our goodbyes to our baby boy,” Licari wrote on the fundrazr.com page. “I can’t imagine how much more difficult this would be if we had to take our minds off of Noah to think about how we are going to pay for everything.”
While grateful and amazed at how many people donated to her family, Licari said it made her a little uncomfortable.
“I wanted to give it all back,” she said. “This is hard, but it is helping us to be out of work to be able to grieve and try to get life back to normal. It’s not normal.”
Just more than a week after losing their child, Brittany and Brian said it doesn’t matter what you have planned or how hard you try to protect your children.
“We’re not promised tomorrow, those are the realest words," Licari said.
