Nothing prepares a mother for the pain of losing a daughter in a fatal car crash.
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Kim Carrington, mother of Stephanie Carrington, is trying to cope with the death of her daughter in a recent tragic accident at 20th Street, near Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Alton. Stephanie died at the scene of the crash.
Kim’s attention has turned to Stephanie’s two young daughters, Mariah Marie and Jocelyn Nicole Carrington.
Kim said Stephanie’s children were the center of her universe.
“She was always taking them places and doing activities with them,” she said. “We are focusing now on not what we have to worry about in the future, but focusing on all the fun we had in our lives up to this point. We are trying to keep everything upbeat with the kids.”
Stephanie's children are presently in custody of Kim and her husband, Bob. The girls are having a difficult time with the passing of their mother, Kim said.
“You never expect anything like that to happen,” Kim Carrington said. “On the flip side, we didn’t take anything for granted. I have started a book for Mariah and Jocelyn and I am writing down places we went together. I also have the books she started and I will continue those and give them those at some point in the future when it is more appropriate.”
On the day of the accident, on April 23, Kim received a telephone call from her fiancé that she had arrived to work. Stephanie had forgotten her cell phone that day and there was no way for her fiancé to reach her.
“I said, ‘maybe she had car trouble and we will go looking for her,’” Kim said. “We live off Alby and when we got to 20th Street I saw the lights and as we got closer my husband said, ‘I don’t think it’s her vehicle.’ I stopped and got out and ran over to the officer who told me who it was and said have a seat back in the vehicle. I went back to the truck and told my husband, ‘it is her and it is bad.’ The officer came over and asked us to move down closer to Saint Anthony’s property and he came to talk to us and told us she had passed.”
Kim will never forget the last conversation she had with her daughter on the night of April 22.
“We talked frequently and she texted me to see if I was working and I called and talked to her while I was eating dinner,” she said. “She was telling me she was so excited and honestly, I can’t remember anything else. We were talking about her work and her upcoming promotion to assistant manager.”
Stephanie worked at Hit and Run in Alton for several years and she is already greatly missed by customers and co-workers, Kim said.
She and her fiancé Butch Forbes were very close and planned to be married soon.
“Both Stephanie and Bob said they didn’t recall a time they had been happier than the last year and a half together,” Kim said.
The last thing Stephanie said to her mother was that she would talk with her the following day.
Unfortunately, that phone call never occurred.
Family was always the most important thing to Stephanie, Kim said.
“We had a family dinner together with the kids almost every Sunday afternoon,” she said. “I will miss that so much and our time and conversations together.”
Kim and Bob Carrington will focus their attention on the needs of their two grandchildren.
“She would want them to be happy,” Kim Carrington said. "That is how I tried to raise both of my kids. I always told them to be happy and be kind to everyone and I think both of my children learned that lesson very well. Stephanie was trying to raise her two children that way.
“Being a parent is never a perfect process, but I think Stephanie was about as perfect a parent as you could get.”
To help with a fund set up for children, click here:
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