Family locked in grips of aching grief

There is no understanding -- only pain -- Barbara Kamysz said Friday as she and her husband struggle with the devastating loss of their daughter and granddaughter.

"It's hard. … It's so painful," she said through tears from her Crystal Lake home where her grandchild, Sydney, 7, was discovered murdered Tuesday evening. "It is too much for us already."

The child's body was discovered tucked in bed in a locked bedroom she shared with her mother at the Kamysz home. Four hours earlier, Sydney's mother, Magdalene, 28, had climbed up a steep railroad embankment near Sands Road in Cary and stepped in front of an oncoming Metra train, turning her back to it just before it hit.

Police are still investigating but currently believe the mother smothered her daughter, then drove to the train tracks and killed herself, leaving her family in the grips of an aching grief.

"I love her so much," Barbara said of her daughter, who went by Maggie.

"I never stopped loving her and I still love her ... even now."

She paused, struggling for words.

"I don't understand her. I have a hard time to understand what happened," added a woman whose primary language is Polish and whose daughter and granddaughter were both gifted and fluent in multiple languages. "She was loving everybody so much. I do not understand."

The loss of her granddaughter, a sweet little girl known for her insatiable love of learning, is impossible to fathom.

"She was ... we know what she was," Barbara said. "She was an unusual child ... incredible, lovable, very good, very smart and ... I love her so much even before she was born."

Again, she struggled with her emotions, then drew a deep breath. "She means so much to me. She is my third child."

Now it is just Barbara, her husband, Jozef, and their son, Gregory. They will hold a visitation for the little girl and her mother Tuesday, the funeral Wednesday.