Big Island mother navigates death of teen daughter by writing book about grief

In navigating the loss of her only daughter, Jessica, who died in a car crash nearly two years ago, Kathy Sprinkle wondered what it would be like if she became friends with grief.

While she blogged about her 17-year-old daughter, she also began writing a book, “The Woman Called Grief,” in which she personifies the emotion as a woman named Aunty G, a friend who speaks honestly and tells it like it is.

As the months have passed, Sprinkle has found that fewer people talk about Jessica, and people have stopped asking for fear of upsetting her.

“My idea for the book is that at the beginning of the story, people kind of shun her (Aunty G), they shun grief,” Sprinkle said.

There are, it seems, unspoken societal rules when it comes to grief.

“You can be sad, but not for too long,” Sprinkle said. “You can be changed by your grief, but not in a way that makes other people uncomfortable.”

By the end of the tales, Auntie G has talked to enough people that they learn how to be able to be with grief, Sprinkle said.

Sprinkle said the book isn’t quite finished as she is also exploring a concept of grief being married to “love,” and what that backstory looks like.

After learning about her book, Phyllis Kanekuni, with the Thelma Parker Memorial Public and School Library in Waimea, invited Sprinkle to do a reading from the book on Saturday, May 9. Afterward, she will lead a short discussion about grief in everyday life.

The free reading will take place at 9:30 a.m. and is open to the community.

“We just thought that was such a brave and courageous thing for her to do to want to help people who’ve maybe also lost loved ones,” Kanekuni said. “We haven’t really done anything like this before. So we just thought it would be a great learning experience … for the community.”

“Part of her healing, too, is being able to talk about it,” Kanekuni said.

Sprinkle remembers exactly where she was the moment she found out Jessica had been in an accident.

It was the morning of Oct. 17, 2024. Sprinkle was at home, and Jessica had left to pick up a few friends on her way to Parker School in Waimea.

“I was actually working on something at my desk, and her Apple watch notified me that there was an accident,” Sprinkle said Wednesday. “I totally assumed that she got a flat tire or something, and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have time to drive everybody to school today.'”

When the watch notified her of the location of the crash, at the intersection of Māmalahoa Highway (Highway 190) and Waikōloa Road (Highway 191), Sprinkle said she drove to the scene. But when she got there, she was told everyone had been taken to the hospital and was turned away.

Jessica, who was driving a silver 2022 Chevrolet Spark sedan, had been broadsided by a white 2018 Peterbilt semi tractor-trailer transporting 5,000 gallons of water that was heading south on Waikōloa Road.

“They wouldn’t let me go near the car,” Sprinkle recalled. “And as it turns out, my daughter did not make it to the hospital.”

After Jessica’s death, Sprinkle, a Waikōloa resident, joined online support groups. She discovered some people were new to their grief, while others had been mourning the loss of their loved one for sometimes more than a decade.

Sprinkle realized people who’ve lost loved ones want to talk about their person, but as time passes, there are fewer opportunities to do so. This sparked her idea for the Grief Heart Project.

Sprinkle designed a pin as a visible sign that she wanted to talk about Jessica. She is hoping to get these pins and stickers out to the community for people to wear, so they can also talk about their loved ones.

“She was a great girl, and I don’t want her memory to disappear,” she said.

The Grief Heart Project on display in April at the Waimea library. Sprinkle will be passing out stickers on Saturday with the image of the Grief Heart.

Jessica would have turned 19 years old on April 4.

Sprinkle described her daughter as kind, but she didn’t realize the wake of Jessica’s impact on those around her until after she passed.

“After she died, we went back to the school for different things and I kept meeting kids, younger kids who were a couple years younger than Jess, and I had never even heard their names,” Sprinkle said. “They would come up and tell me, ‘You know, Auntie Kathy, I have to tell you that Jess helped me through this.'”

Sprinkle went on to say that Jessica was in all the plays with kids, and she would practice lines with them when no one else would.

Jessica was also loved by her teachers.

Sprinkle said her daughter used to eat lunch with her friends in Mr. Ruderman’s classroom every day. When they became seniors, Sprinkle said, the students got to eat in Parker School’s senior lounge.

“Jess took the time to go back and talk to Mr. Ruderman, and ask him if he was OK that everybody was leaving,” Sprinkle said.

Sprinkle said after losing Jess, she and her husband, Rob, feel “like life looks really long now.”

But her hope with the book and the Grief Heart Project is to bring people together to help them feel comfortable talking about their losses, or not be afraid to ask.

“Grief is not anger, it’s not despair,” Sprinkle said. “Grief is just love coming back.”