Hannah Bostwick is just two days past the birth of her second child — and is waiting patiently to bring her newborn son to his father's water-logged gravesite.
- New mom Hannah Bostwick lost husband in motorcycle crash
- She just had their son, Colton, several days ago
- Her husband's gravesite is water-logged in Titusville cemetery
- Cemetery officials have tried to pump out the water
Little Colton was born on Halloween morning and named after his 22-year-old father, who was killed in a motorcycle crash in Melbourne in May.
"Colton Spike Bostwick, he is 6 pounds, 7 ounces and he's 18 1/2 inches long," Hannah Bostwick said from her hospital bed Thursday, describing her newborn son. "He came out looking just like my husband."
Colton's father was buried at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens in Titusville, which, like so many Brevard County properties, is still partially flooded by Hurricane Irma and the heavy rains that followed.
"We were going out there to say, 'We are on our way to have our son,' and I couldn't even make it past the second headstone because my feet started mushing into the ground," Bostwick recalled. "It's not just my husband who is under water. There are many more graves and plots," she said.
The family said it's been trying to get the cemetery officials to do something about it.
"Not being able to reach them, I know is stressing them out," said Courtney Charvet, managing partner of Oaklawn Memorial Gardens.
He said dozens of families have expressed the same concerns as the Bostwicks.
Charvet said the facility has rented pumps to drain their retention pond, but the water saturation filled it back up again.
"After Irma came through, water was a huge issue here in the Garden of Serenity," Charvet said. "Some of that we were able to correct, (but) anything we do is just a temporary fix," he said. "I wish I could fix this instantly. There's just no easy answer to it."
Cemetery officials said they have also brought in civil engineers to look at storm drainage issues on the 23-acre property.
For the Bostwicks, this time of joy is not what it could be.
"I would love to go out there with our children and see him and talk to him," Bostwick said.
She plans a visit with the couple's children as soon as it's possible.