Shelley Budke lost her husband, then her grandson. She'll run the OKC Memorial Marathon for them.
A few months ago, Shelley Budke had no intention of running the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.
She’s done the half marathon several times since her husband died. Kurt Budke was the Oklahoma State women’s basketball coach killed in a plane crash along with Cowgirl assistant Miranda Serna back in 2011. In the decade or so since, every time Shelley ran the Memorial Marathon, she did it in honor of someone killed in the 1995 bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and in memory of Kurt and Miranda.
But a couple of years ago when Shelley last ran the Memorial Marathon, it was hard on her body. The pain was intense. The recovery was long. She decided her long-distance running days might be behind her.
Then Vincent died.
Last December, Budke’s 2-year-old grandson Vincent Felton died unexpectedly in his sleep. Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood, it’s called. SUDC for short.
“It was a total, total shock,” Shelley said.
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There was no cancer. There was no illness. There was not anything to prepare Budke and her family for another lightning-bolt tragedy. First, Kurt’s plane crash. Then, an energetic toddler dying in his sleep?
“Having two tragedies is,” Shelley said, “it’s just unthinkable.
“It just doesn’t seem fair. But we live in this broken world, and we don’t know all the answers.”
Shelley Budke, however, decided to do something in hopes of finding some answers ― she is running the Memorial Marathon this weekend to raise awareness for SUDC and funds for research into its causes.
“It is rare, but there is that possibility … they can find a risk factor,” she said. “Hopefully we can pinpoint something that’s causing this.”
She hopes all parents and grandparents will join the effort because SUDC can affect any family. It can strike at any time. It can take a child without warning.
That’s how it was for Budke’s family.
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'He was just gone'
Shelley Budke got the phone call early on a Saturday morning last December.
Something was wrong with her grandson.
Come quick.
Sara and Von Felton, Shelley’s daughter and son-in-law, only lived about 15 minutes away from her in Edmond. But when Budke pulled up, jumped out and started running toward the house, she was met by a fire department chaplain.
There was devastating news: 2-year-old Vincent Felton was dead.
Shelley felt like she had been transported back to that November day in 2011 when she found out Kurt was dead.
“You wake up one morning and everything is fine,” she said, “and then at night, it’s not.”
And in both instances, Shelley and the rest of the family were left to wonder what had gone wrong. Why had Kurt’s plane crashed on a day that was clear and dry? Why had Vince gone to bed and never woken up?
He had the flu a couple of weeks earlier. He even stayed with Budke for a few days while he wasn’t feeling good, but only a few days before he died, his dad dropped off Vince at Shelley’s house.
As soon as Vince came through her door, he was smiling and laughing and running all over the house.
“This is the best he’s acted in a week,” his dad told Shelley.
Vince didn’t have any more signs of the flu. No fever. No cough.
The night before he died, his mom thought his appetite wasn’t great, but that wasn’t a big red flag. She put Vince to bed figuring everything would be fine the next day.
She went to wake him up the next morning and found he wasn’t breathing or moving.
“And he was gone,” Shelley said. “He was just gone.”
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'We don't know why'
Shelley Budke became the family’s point person with the medical examiner. An autopsy had to be performed because Vince was unaccompanied when he died, but when the medical examiner called Shelley the next day, there were no answers for why Vince had died unexpectedly.
“You mean SIDS?” Shelley remembers asking, referencing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
“No,” the medical examiner said, “SIDS is for kids under 1.”
Instead, Vince had died of Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood, which involves children 1 to 18. According to the SUDC Foundation, it was the cause of death in 450 American children in 2021.
“I’d never even heard of it,” Shelley said.
But in the months since, she has learned much more about SUDC as well as the SUDC Foundation, which helped Shelley and the rest of the family find grief counseling. It asked Vince’s parents, Sara and Von, to submit to genetic testing, too. Getting results might take more than a year, but there is a chance the tests might not only identify a cause of death but also help researchers find commonalities between other kids who died of SUDC.
Sara and Von were quick to say yes to the testing.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Shelley remembers Sara saying.
Helping save other kids would be significant, but in their only little corner of the world, it would be big to have an an answer about why Vince died. Such a thing wouldn’t bring him back, but not knowing compounds the grief.
“It just makes it very, very difficult,” Shelley said.
“We don’t know why. That’s the tough part.”
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'Just the light of our life'
Shelley Budke marveled watching her daughter and son-in-law throw themselves into getting an answer about Vince’s death. They answered every question that was asked and provided every bit of family history that was needed.
Shelley wanted to do everything in her power to help, too.
“The only thing as a grandma that I could do is make people aware,” she said.
She decided to run the half in the Memorial Marathon as a way to raise awareness. She started a Facebook page, Run for Vince, and for a $10 donation to the SUDC Foundation, people could guess her finishing time. Closest guess wins $100.
Budke has raised $3,000 but hopes to keep going.
She will wear a shirt with Vince’s photo on it during Sunday’s race, and she hopes people will ask her questions. She will tell them about SUDC and the research being done, but she will also tell them about her blond-haired, blue-eyed Vince who loved to dig in the dirt and run around the house.
“He was a little bit shy,” Shelley said. “Being a COVID baby, he wasn’t out and about much.
“But once he knew you, oh my goodness.”
Even though he was only 2, he had a sense of humor. When his daycare teacher asked him the name of her daughter ― Vince knew it was Bailee ― he would say other names or words. This game would go on for two or three minutes before Vince finally said, “Bailee.”
“Just the light of our life,” Shelley said. “Kind of gave us hope again.”
She leaned on her faith to navigate the years after Kurt died, and while she has been leaning again since Vince died, she believes action and work are part of it. That’s why she ran the Memorial Marathon before for Kurt and Miranda. That’s why she’ll do it this year for Vince.
“I’m competitive,” the former college basketball player said, “but this is more about the experience and doing something for Vincent and all my loved ones. It’s not really about going out and getting a (personal record) or anything.
“It’s more about the experience.”
It’s a run to remember.
Shelley Budke plans to never forget.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Want to help?
You can donate to Shelley Budke's fundraiser for Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood and the SUDC Foundation on the "Run for Vince" Facebook page. Or you can donate directly to the foundation at sudc.org/donation and designate Shelley Budke or Vincent Felton as the honoree.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Memorial Marathon 2023: Shelley Budke runs for Kurt, grandson
