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Kara Keough Honors Her Late Son with a Tributary Halloween Costume

The Real Housewives of Orange County daughter remembered McCoy on her first "home-decoration-worthy holiday without you."

By Jenny Berg Nov 6, 2020, 3:12 PM ET

Photo: Kara Keough/ Instagram

After the devastating loss of her infant son, McCoy, Kara Keough is finding her own ways to his memory alive. The daughter of The Real Housewives of Orange County alum Jeana Keough has a tattoo of the letter "M" on her wrist, and she has a teddy bear to cuddle that's McCoy's exact birth weight. And when a bittersweet Halloween rolled around, Kara chose a group costume that held space for her son.

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To caption a few snaps of herself, her husband, Kyle, and her daughter Decker all dressed up to trick or treat, the Orange County mother addressed McCoy.

"This Halloween, our first home-decoration-worthy holiday without you, we were the Aladdin cast," she wrote. "There was a Frenchie where a 7-month-old you should have been Abu. Our pup was almost as intolerant to a fez as you would have been, but he wasn’t you. Under my costume and forced smile, my heart still raw with the missing of you, I try not to spoil the memory for Decker by crying."

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When we held you for the first time in the NICU, Daddy called you âMonkey.â I loved it. I love it. Active tense. I often need to remind myself that loving you is active, not passive. You donât have to be stuck in our past. We can keep you in our present and in our future - just not the way we hoped you would be. I wish in the same way I hear âBeannnnn!â when Deckerâs needed is the same way âMonkeyyyyy!!â echoed in our halls - daily. Commonly. Taken-for-grantedly. This Halloween, our first home-decoration-worthy holiday without you, we were the Aladdin cast. There was a Frenchie where a 7-month-old you should have been Abu. Our pup was almost as intolerant to a fez as you would have been, but he wasnât you. Under my costume and forced smile, my heart still raw with the missing of you, I try not to spoil the memory for Decker by crying. Holidays make the missing you more palpable, and I shudder thinking about how Thanksgiving will taste without our little Butterball Turkey. How can holiday photos go out with your parenthesized age update stuck at âForever 6 Days Old?â How will Christmas morning feel without one of our greatest gifts? How can a New Year come when you stayed in the one before, vehemently against our will? And how can we celebrate Valentineâs Day when our hearts are this broken? It all feels so wrong. Without love, thereâs no grief. Itâs the inevitable price of loving. I read recently, âWhatever you love, you will lose,â and I panicked. My exact suspicions and acute fears confirmed. Love wouldnât feel the way it does if loss wasnât buried there beneath, lying in wait. Knowing about this tragic other side of the love coin, Iâm awakened. It makes me clutch my precious treasures, my loves, close to my heart. I fiddle and fret over my pearls - your daddy, your sister. My threshold for losing my shit on your big sister is so much higher, my time spent scrolling through Instagram is so much lower. I prefer to gaze at your sisterâs sweet face instead and share in her big dreams: âMommy, I wish I was a mermaidâ and âMommy, I wish I could have ice cream every single dayâ but most of all âMommy, I wish McCoy was alive on land with us.â Me too, baby. Me too.
A post shared by Kara Bosworth (@karakeoughboz) on Nov 6, 2020 at 6:49am PST