For the past 14 years, I've been haunted by a paid obituary appearing annually in The Oregonian. Perhaps you've seen it, too. This year it ran Sunday, July 8, on page D10.

Reading an obituary, immersing ourselves in the details of a stranger's life, allows us to measure our own.

Not so the obituary on D10.

Just five spare lines, it offers only the names of triplets whose lives spanned one day, July 5, 2004. About two weeks after they died, their small obit appeared in the newspaper.

Since then, someone has paid to run it every July.

Why?

I've meant to find the answer for more than a decade. But always, within days after I see the obit, some other story has come up, the cycle repeating itself.

During my 40-year career, I've learned to respect the mystery surrounding some stories. It's as if they have a soul, quietly making it known they must be told.

Perhaps that's why I received the email.

"I'm honestly not sure why I am writing you."

Jenifer McVicker works out of the Southeast Portland office of Catholic Charities of Oregon, the nonprofit that works with people of all faiths to combat poverty and injustice. She manages its database containing the names of supporters, donors and families.

To keep it current, McVicker reads every obituary printed in the paper and online to look for names matching those in the database. When she deletes a name, the director sends a letter of condolence.

McVicker has stumbled over the tiny obit each July since she was hired eight years ago.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I have searched the internet a bit in the past when I'd see the obituary, but there is nothing. As the mother of two healthy young adults, my heart bleeds for a fellow mother who no longer gets to hold and hug her babies.

Within her letter I sensed the story's soul call to me in a simple two-sentence passage.

"So, there you have it. Do with this what you will."

***

Days later, I met McVicker. She said she had gotten the job after her youngest child entered seventh grade. She estimates she's read thousands of obits since then.

McVicker told me that when she's finished reading an obituary, she offers a silent prayer for the departed. She told me doing that with the D10 obit has brought her no peace.

"Perhaps it sounds morbid," she said, "but what I need is closure."

Back at my desk in the newsroom, I left a message on the online guest book linked to the obit. Two weeks passed. I heard nothing. With a bit of research, I got the telephone number of the mother of those triplets. I called, introduced myself and explained my curiosity.

And then Jody Kappes invited me to her home.

***

Every journalist deals with death. I've covered car accidents, fires and homicides, watched bodies carried out of homes and apartments. The nature of the job means I ask intrusive questions, typically right after an event. Then I vanish and let people get on with their lives.

This was different. There was no news to cover. Would I want a stranger to come ask me about one of the most painful moments in my life, one so long ago.

What was my purpose that day I drove to Kappes' Gresham home? I had no answer but trusted the story to show me the way.

As I walked up the steps to the front door, I realized that had those babies lived they now would be getting ready to start their freshman year in high school. Maybe that's why my knock was soft, even hesitant.

Kappes led me to the middle of the living room where her family – her husband, Johnny, and the couple's four daughters – waited for me. They all looked at me, and I made nervous small talk about how their house butted up to a beautiful wildlife park, the stifling heat and how I nearly got lost three times while making my way to their house.

And then it was time.

I told the parents how I'd seen the obit for 14 years. I told them about what McVicker had written. If they didn't want to share their story, I'd leave, and they'd never hear from me again. If they did, I was ready to listen.

Parents and children looked at each other.

***

Jody and Johnny Kappes already had two daughters, 4 and 2, when the doctor told them that they were going to have triplets.

When Jody Kappes was 5 ½ months pregnant, the young family headed to her parents' beach cabin south of Rockaway to celebrate the Fourth of July. Her pregnancy had been trouble-free.

About 4 a.m. on July 5 Kappes woke up screaming. She was giving spontaneous birth, the first baby, a boy, was alive in the bed and his siblings were ready to join him. An ambulance was called, and Kappes' husband was told to do what he could to keep the other two babies inside his wife.

Medical teams arrived at the beach house. The newborn and Kappes were rushed to the hospital in Tillamook where doctors declared the first baby dead. His brother and sister were pronounced dead shortly after they were born in the emergency room.

As Jody Kappes talked, Johnny walked across the living room to wrap his arm around her shoulder.

"You know what?" she tells me. "I didn't expect to go on a vacation and come home with my babies' ashes."

Early on, Jody and Johnny Kappes picked names for those babies: Jackson and Jordan, the middle names of both their fathers; and Jewel, her great grandmother's name.

Three death certificates listed those names.

And so did the newspaper obituary I first read in 2004.

***

What I discovered that day in Gresham is that while an obituary honors the dead, it's also there for those left behind. Those babies live on in the hearts of all in this home.

Their father has their names tattooed on the inside of his wrist. Their two older sisters call the babies their angels. Years after the deaths, the couple had two more kids, both girls. On every July 5, the entire family gathers in a park to release three balloons.

I thanked the couple for their time. I apologized for questions that may have been intrusive.

"It hurts to think about things we haven't thought about for a while," said Jody Kappes. "But we're glad you came."

As she walked me to the door, she stopped. She had a final request. She wanted me to talk again with McVicker.

"Because of that obit, a stranger said a prayer for us for eight years," she said. "Those prayers, sent in love, reached us."

She smiled.

"Please, tell her that," she said. "From us."

***

Jody's mother, Bonnie Widerburg, is the person who pays each year to run that five-line obituary.

This year it cost her $175, which she charges to her credit card.

"I do it because they were alive," said Widerburg. "Maybe for a short time, but they did exist. I want to recognize that brief life."

She makes sure the obit runs in the Sunday newspaper as close to July 5 as possible.

Next year, it will run on July 7.

***

Last week, I talked again with McVicker. She told me she will forever think of Jackson, Jordan and Jewel Kappes.

She told me she was going to pray that night for the triplets, asking that they rest in peace.

May it be so.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr