Boy, 11, fights for funeral for stillborn sister

His peers are playing video games or riding their bikes, but Roger Holloway is spending his spring break fulfilling a very personal mission — giving his infant sister a proper burial.

His father is dead. His mother is in a hospital trying to beat a drug addiction.

So the responsibility for properly naming and burying the sister he never knew, who was stillborn nearly a year ago because of his mother’s drug use, fell squarely on Roger’s 11-year-old shoulders.

Today, thanks to Roger’s determination and the kindness of strangers, the baby girl, known in the official record only as “Fetus Girl Holloway,” will finally be laid to rest near his home at a Waller cemetery instead of in a pauper’s grave.

And her burial plot will be marked by a 75-pound granite tombstone bearing an angel and the name Rachel Holloway — a name chosen for her by her brother.

Roger, who lives with his grandmother in Hockley, had rejected the idea of burying his baby sister in the Harris County Cemetery, where the indigent and unclaimed are buried, because he couldn’t make weekly visits to a graveyard far from home.

“I don’t want her to be, like, far away from me,” Roger said. “I want to visit her every week instead of having to go real far. She’s still my relative. Even if she’s dead, she’s still my sister.”

Roger’s quest to find his sister a resting place began in February after her tiny body had been in storage at the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office for almost a year.

His mission so touched Virginia Stebbins, a bereavement counselor with the Harris County Social Services Department, that she sought other agencies’ assistance to help the boy achieve his goal.

“He is doing everything he can. He has assumed the responsibility of the man in the household,” said Stebbins, whose department supervises the burial of Harris County’s unfortunates — the indigent, unidentified, abandoned and those with no family or friends to help make funeral arrangements.

“It’s so hard for adults to deal with grief and death. It must be an immense burden for him. An 11-year-old should be out there playing baseball, not trying to bury his baby sister.”

Roger’s 33-year-old mother, whose name is being withheld at the family’s request, was once a devoted parent who worked as a medical secretary. But she was a sporadic and unreliable figure in the boy’s life for the last two years because of her drug use and has stayed away from the family’s home for months at a time, loved ones said.

Roger is being raised by his grandmother, Maria Rodriguez, with whom he has lived all his life.

His mother is in a Houston hospital undergoing a 30-day drug rehabilitation and declined to comment for this story.

Family members had not seen her since October and did not know her whereabouts until Friday. She called them for help after she had been badly beaten and began suffering drug withdrawal symptoms, then agreed to check into a hospital to undergo detoxification.

Rodriguez said she was alarmed by her daughter’s pregnancy last year because the expectant mother had been taking pills and drinking.

The younger woman delivered a 31-week fetus — a well-developed girl with a full head of hair — at Doctors Hospital Parkway on May 21.

Doctors attributed the baby’s stillbirth to complications associated with the mother’s use of illegal drugs, a Harris County Medical Examiner’s report shows.

Rodriguez, who cleans houses for a living, said she could not afford the expense of a private burial for her granddaughter, and the father could not be found.

“If I had the money, I would tell Roger, ‘Yes, let’s make (the funeral) over here, and I’ll pay for it,’ “ Rodriguez said.

Roger, whose father died when he was just a year old, always wanted a sibling, but did not know his mother was pregnant.

He learned of the baby’s death when a caseworker with Child Protective Services came to check his welfare after doctors discovered his sister’s stillbirth had been drug-related.

Finding that the boy had been living with his grandmother and was in fine condition despite his mother’s frequent absences, CPS decided to leave him there.

Roger never saw Rachel in person — a few Polaroids of the infant with a hospital bracelet around her ankle are all the family has — but he was haunted by her loss.

It touched something in his core, prompting him to ask the staff at a Waller funeral home for help when his class took a recent field trip there.

Asked why he took such a personal interest, Roger said, “I think it’s a better thing to do than to say, ‘Who cares where they’re buried?’ “

The funeral home considered the boy’s request, but ultimately declined, saying the baby did not fit their criteria for an indigent burial, Stebbins said. Roger was deeply disappointed by the decision, his grandmother said.

His concern came to the attention of the board of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Waller, which decided late Monday to allow Rachel to be buried in its cemetery, just down the street from Roger’s school on Stokes Road, Stebbins said.

Many others touched by the plight of Roger and his sister came together to help. John Hamilton, the CEO of a Houston-based real estate group, is paying for the baby’s grave space and graveside service. Carnes Funeral Home agreed to embalm the infant and donate a casket, while Robbins Monuments will donate the engraved granite marker adorned with an angel for her gravesite.

Edd Wunderlich, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, will preside over today’s service. The Alpha K-9 Kennel group paid for flowers for the burial, while Martha Herebia furnished three floral arrangements.

P.J. King, a student at the Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Service, will provide help at the burial, while the 3 A Bereavement Foundation will donate $100 for Roger to purchase school supplies.

All donors are expected to attend today’s service and will receive thank-you notes from the boy they helped.

Roger said he thinks of his sister every day and thinks his painful loss will compel him to be a good father someday.

“I’m not going to make the same decisions my mom made,” he said, sobbing at times. “ ... For the rest of my life, I’m going to hate drugs because of what happened to my mom and because it killed my sister.”