After the Funeral, There's the Quiet

            Today I’m thinking about Emily Rapp Black’s experience after her two-year-old infant son Ronan died, as well as about people I’ve loved who died in April — my wife Evelyn, John’s wife Anne, and Judy’s husband John. I hold them in my heart, along with those of you who also lost loved ones this month. Each year, this month of death makes us moody, sometimes snarly, especially when we think about what could have, should have, been.

Like the Stars

Book: Light Of One Star, Anne Fischer Juhlmann

Anne Juhlmann has published the journal she kept of her daily life taking care of her two sons, Zach and Sam, who developed Mitochondrial Disease when they were young and died within a few years of each other. It’s a story of strength, heartbreak and love, and it will make you laugh, cry and hurt.

Anne’s book joins other moving accounts of parents writing about the death of their children, particularly Emily Rapp’s (Black) account of her son Ronan’s death to Tay-Sachs at age two (Still Point of the Turning World), and Elea Acheson’s blog posts and writings in the Huffington Post about her son Vasu dying of kidney cancer at age six.

The Reality of Finality

When grief comes, the world changes forever.

Commonalities of Grief

All grief is the same, and each grief is different.

If you haven’t experienced the death of someone close, you don’t know how devastating and pervasive grief is. It affects everything. It changes everything.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

Death of a Child

Book: Still Point of the Turning World, Emily Rapp

            Emily Rapp’s son Ronan died before his third birthday. I knew of Emily through one of her friends, so I won’t pretend to say that I understand what she feels or thinks about the loss of her child. I lost my wife early. There are similarities, but there are also significant differences.

            The cause of Ronan’s death was Tay-Sachs, a genetic defect that kills every baby born with it within the first four years of life. Over the months, the infants increasingly lose their ability to see, hear, feel, touch, move, and breathe. There is no treatment and no cure. Soon after Ronan was born, he began to die.