San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan is sharing an update on Trent Williams and his family after the left tackle’s son was stillborn.
The Niners coach confirmed the NFL player’s recent loss in a Dec. 2 conference call with reporters, sharing how he and the team have been “trying to be here for him through it all.”
“It’s something that happened last week and he was there at the hospital with her and got to meet him and say bye,” Shanahan said, according to ESPN. “And then he had to cremate him on Friday. He’s been dealing with that and he’s working through it. We’re all just trying to be here for him through it all.”
Shanahan added that the team would do whatever they can to make sure Williams, his wife, Sondra Williams, and their family have what they need as they grieve.
Shondra Williams revealed on a Nov. 30 Instagram post that her son, Trenton O’Brien Williams Jr., was stillborn at 35 weeks on Nov. 24. In the post, she shared that she had lost his twin “earlier in the pregnancy” and that Trenton had been diagnosed with trisomy 13.
Trisomy 13 is a rare genetic condition when an extra copy of chromosome 13 attaches to a pair of chromosomes, according to Cleveland Clinic. Symptoms may affect the development of the face, brain, heart and several other internal organs.
News of the Williams family’s stillborn comes a month after 49ers player Charvarius Ward’s 1-year-old daughter, Amani Joy, also died.
“We are heartbroken that our beautiful baby girl, Amani Joy, passed away on Monday morning,” the Niners cornerback wrote Oct. 29 on Instagram.
According to KNTV, an NBC affiliate in the Bay Area, Ward’s daughter was born prematurely with Down syndrome and suffered heart issues.
Speaking about both of the heartbreaking deaths, Shanahan said Dec. 2, “It’s hard as a coach. It’s hard as a friend, it’s hard as a family member. It’s hard for everybody. But we spend a lot of time with each other. That’s what’s cool about a football team. Whatever you go through, the good or the bad, we go through it together.”
“You can never escape that full grief, but I do think it’s nice for those guys to have another avenue to get out on the football field, to get around teammates and things like that,” he added.
