Cindy Salfate lost her son in 2021. Then, she turned her grief into something that could help others in similar situations.
When Fowlerville’s Cindy Salfate lost her son Oliver unexpectedly last year, she fell into a terrible depression.
“It was the hardest thing of my life,” she said.
Previously, Oliver Salfate had no health issues except for occasional dizziness. Then, in 2021, on the night of Jan. 13, the 28-year-old man collapsed and was taken to the hospital after a brain aneurism. He was taken off of life support the next day.
His mother knew what she needed to do. She wanted to have a unique headstone for Oliver’s grave. She traveled throughout the United States to find a rose quartz headstone because it stands for everlasting love, she said.
The stone, which sits at the Greenwood Cemetery in Fowlerville, is now a place Salfate, 58, goes to talk and grieve. One day when she went to visit Oliver’s stone, she noticed that the person next to him did not have a stone.