Edwarda O’Bara, known as “Florida’s Sleeping Snow White,” spoke her final words to her mother before slipping into a coma that would last 42 years, ultimately leading to her passing.
On January 3, 1970, Edwarda, just 16 years old, was rushed to a hospital in Miami, Florida, after experiencing severe shaking and intense pain.
The teenager had been diagnosed with diabetes and was taking oral insulin medication. However, when she became ill with the flu and began vomiting, the medication’s effectiveness was compromised, leading to her sudden health decline.
The buildup of sugar in her system ultimately caused Edwarda to lose consciousness and slip into a diabetic coma.
Before losing consciousness, she reportedly told her mom, “Promise you won’t leave me.”
According to the Miami Herald, her mother reassured her, saying, “Of course not, I would never leave you, darling, I promise. And a promise is a promise!”
True to her word, Edwarda’s family remained by her side, caring for her with dedication and love every single day over the years.
Edwarda’s parents devoted themselves to her care, reading to her, playing music, ensuring she was turned every two hours, bathing her, administering insulin, and tube-feeding her, all until their deaths in 1976 and 2008. After their passing, her sister, Colleen, took over the responsibility.
Edwarda’s extraordinary story inspired the 2001 book A Promise Is A Promise: An Almost Unbelievable Story of a Mother’s Unconditional Love and What It Can Teach Us and a song titled My Blessed Child.
People from around the world traveled to visit the ‘real-life Snow White,’ and in 1983, Miami Herald columnist Charles Whited reported that Edwarda briefly woke up and said “Hey” two nights in a row, though she never spoke again.
Her sister reflected on the profound impact Edwarda had on her, telling the Herald: “She taught me so much, and I’m talking about now, after she was in the coma. She taught me so much about unconditional love that I couldn’t say I had it before. She taught me about patience that I didn’t have before.”
After 42 years in a coma, Edwarda tragically passed away in 2012, and her sister shared the news of her passing.
Colleen wrote: “Yesterday, while taking care of Edwarda, I noticed her looking directly at me and giving me the biggest smile I had ever seen. She then closed her eyes and joined my Mom in Heaven.”
A Reddit thread discussing Edwarda’s life paid tribute to her and her family, with one user commenting: “I can’t imagine how hard it is to hold onto that hope for so long and it to not mean anything in the end. People have been crushed by so much less.
“Nothing but sympathy for a mother who never stopped loving her daughter.”
