Losing a Child

In the textbook of life, if one can learn grief, empathizing without (thankfully) truly understanding, then today was one more heartbreaking and terrifying lesson.

Jamie was 34 and his mother is my friend. Not that it matters, but death came in a car accident.

The news stunned me into silence. The funeral leaves me staring at the pictures of my own child and grandchildren with both gratitude and fear; fear which is always, has always been present, but fear usually buried beneath daily life.

My helpless words never breach the shell and while my shoulder absorbs the tears it cannot restore. Mother, Father, wife, two very small children whose lives are forever altered. My imagining encompasses a mere speck of the reality. To me, a child lost seems the most hideous of bereavements.

Even the strongest life is fragile.