RIP Kaye O'Bara

Kaye O'Bara, who cared for her disabled daughter, Edwarda, since she slipped into a diabetic coma in 1970, has died at the home they shared in Miami Gardens, Miami. O'Bara, 80, died in her sleep from a cardiac illness that dated back to a heart attack she suffered in the early 1980's.

Kaye O'Bara promised Edwarda as she began to lose consciousness that she would never leave her. As the Miami Herald reports:

those final words to her daughter became the blueprint for her life: turning her every two hours so her daughter wouldn't develop bedsores, feeding her a mixture of baby food and powdered milk through a tube, administering insulin, playing music, reading books to Edwarda, who was once an avid reader, and keeping a watchful vigil by her bedside in the hope that one day her daughter would come to.

"To me, she's almost awake. Sometimes I think I hear her speak," O'Bara once told the Miami Herald. "She says, 'Mom, I'm fine.' Maybe she's not saying anything at all, but I think she's speaking to me."

According to Edwarda's younger sister, Colleen O'Bara, the family will continue to care for her at home.

Rest in peace, Kaye.