When her 5-month-old daughter Amanda is napping, there are times when Jennifer McPhee is on pins and needles.

Those feelings are understandable considering what the Joint Base Lewis-McChord spouse has been through during the past two years.

Jennifer and her husband Michael, a staff sergeant in the 17th Fires Brigade, lost their daughter Megan nearly two years ago to a sudden unexplained death.

"It's always in the back of your mind," Jennifer said. "Time makes it so I don't cry as quickly. But (the memory) is just as fresh."

Michael was in the midst of a one-year deployment to Iraq and Jennifer was home in Lacey with 18-month-old Megan and their other daughter, Emily, who was five at the time. Jennifer went in to check on the napping Megan and made a horrible discovery.

"I put her down (for a nap) and she just didn't wake up," Jennifer said.
The Red Cross immediately got a message to Michael in Iraq and he was on the next plane home to JBLM.

"The biggest focus for me was to get home," said Michael, who has been in the Army for 10 years and at JBLM since 2008. "It was a long plane ride home."

It took two days for him to get home.

"He'd said his goodbyes eight months prior," Jennifer said.

Despite the tragedy, Jennifer and Michael, who were high school sweethearts at Elma High in Grays Harbor County, never wavered in their commitment to each other. The couple married at 21 and was stationed in Korea, Germany and Fort Sill, Okla., before coming to JBLM in 2008.

Michael's family, who works in the funeral business and helps people cope with grief on a daily basis, wrapped their arms around the couple and Emily after Megan's death.
"To have someone we're related to that we could talk to about everything was pretty beneficial," Michael said.

Jennifer also sought out other mothers who'd been affected by a sudden unexplained death in childhood on the web and on various support blogs. She also started her own support blog (http://mamajamajenny.blogspot.com/).

"Just being able to write what I was going through was helpful," she said. "I could let off steam and found support in an online community."

Some people who met her through the online community even flew out to Washington for Megan's funeral.

Although she was just 5 years old when her sister passed away, the death affected Emily.

"She's been pretty resilient," Jennifer said. "She's really good about remembering her sister. She's been pretty good about keeping her head up."

Pictures of Megan are all over the McPhee's home, keeping her memory alive.

"We have pictures in every room ... it's something we're very open about," Michael said.

Every year on the day Megan died and her birthday, the Mcphees get together with family and have dinner and release balloons.

"It makes things a little easier when you have a good support network," Jennifer said.

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