VILLAGE OF MINOA – Pulling positivity from grief, a bench dedication ceremony in Minoa’s Lewis Park this month memorialized a local infant remembered for the light and love he shared in his short life.
The yellow “buddy bench” faces the park’s swing set because that always-smiling young boy, Sonny Jude, loved to go on the swings anywhere he went, said his mother, East Syracuse resident Samantha Becotte. Now, it’s as if he’s there watching over everybody who stops by the playground, sitting right beside the parents keeping an eye on their frolicking children.
At the Aug. 4 ribbon cutting, Becotte was joined by her parents, her six-year-old daughter Lyla, plenty of friends with young kids, and other members of her family—all of whom formed a supportive net for her to fall back on when her son passed away on Oct. 9, 2021 at the age of only 13 months.
It was in March 2021 that Sonny Jude suddenly stopped breathing one night, only to be resuscitated by his babysitter, Mady Alcock, who had the quick thinking to administer CPR. After the hospital he went to ran some tests, it was confirmed that the young boy had a genetic heart rhythm disorder known as long QT syndrome.