'Devastated' Mom Finds Baby's Grave Plaque In Pile At Cemetery

CENTER MORICHES, NY — A grieving mother who lost her baby son in March was devastated when she went to visit his grave and found a plaque she'd put beside his final resting place missing — and tossed aside in a pile.

Her plaque — angel wings with a verse for her infant son — was not the only grave marker gone: Photos taken at the cemetery depict a pile of people's precious memories, flowers, photos, and angels, tossed aside, with no advance warning to the mourners who'd left them at gravesites.

"I am at an absolute loss for words," Katie Germer said on Facebook Tuesday. She and fiance, her baby's father Jesse Polini, went to Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Center Moriches and found the plaque gone.

"I was already upset that I put this down for him, and it was gone, so Jesse and I went to the office to complain," Germer said. "We had seen a huge pile of stuff as we were driving to the office."

They were told, she said, that they weren't allowed to put anything at a gravesite or plot because crews needed to mow, something she said she hadn't known prior to her son's burial. Baby Nicholas Giovanna, born premature, lived just 26 days before dying on March 30.

Her son, she said, was born 25 weeks "to the day, making him about three months premature. He was a micro-premie; he didn't even weigh a lb. when he was born."

Her baby, extremely premature, had kidney failure, which caused his heart to stop, Germer said.

"Being a first-time mom and going through what we had was just heartbreaking but he was a fighter," Germer said.

Doctors, she said, were afraid he might not even be born. But, she said: "Nicholas gave us a beautiful 26 days of loving him. It was an up-and-down battle that no family should ever face. The days were easy when he reacted to our voices and kicked his feet and moved his hands to our voices. But the days when he didn’t do so well and he was critical were gut-wrenching."

The plaque was meaningful because Germer's fiancé’s grandmother had given it to them. "We had another one at our house so they were a pair. To have it just taken and thrown away felt like the cemetery was saying, 'He’s gone and there’s no reason for this to be here.'"

Losing her firstborn child was something no parent should ever have to bear, Germer said.

"Our hearts are completely shattered; Nicholas Giovanni, our warrior, put up a long hard fight and gave us 26 beautiful days where we physically got to love him and be near him. Yesterday morning his battle end as he passed in my arms," Germer wrote, after he died. "We’re broken, hurting, devastated."

When the pair went to the office at the cemetery they were told they could look for the plaque in a pile, where they found it among other plaques, crosses, and family photos, she said.

"We’re so disgusted," she said. "Our hearts are broken not just for us but for the other families who had left beautiful pieces for their loved ones."

Staff at Mount Pleasant Cemetery did not immediately return a call for comment.