Dealing with the death of a child

I’ve been abnormally saddened lately about the death of a child who I never knew. Having never met this family (until after the fact), I can’t quite figure out why this has affected me so strongly. Best I can figure, it’s because their family looks on paper very similar to ours – 5 year old girl and 2-year old boy (the ages of our kids when it happened a few weeks ago), they live in Hoboken close to us, the father plays golf with Brian and the mother is a career woman (lawyer). It also probably has to do with the fact that this boy died of cancer. Totally unpreventable. Completely random in who it attacks and why. Utterly unfair.

I’ve known, or known of, other families who have lost children but I’ve never felt so wounded by any of their stories. Probably because in most other cases it was explainable and therefore easy for me to tell myself that I could prevent that from happening in my family. Whether that’s true or not, it’s a convenient delusion. But in this case a young boy, just 2 months younger than Dylan, woke up one day unable to move his arm. Tests found a stage 4 tumor wrapped around his spine. He spent the next 7 weeks undergoing radiation until the tumor crippled the nerves that affected his vital organs.

Still today, two months later, I think about this family every single day – how heart wrenching it must be for the parents to have to go through the motions of the daily grind, how did they explain it to their daughter, how do they learn to be a family of three again, how can they resume a normal life, how do they avoid reminders of him. When my kids hit a milestone or have a memorable moment, I think about the fact that this family won’t have that moment with their boy. When I lose my temper with my kids, I try to remind myself how grateful this family would be to be in my situation. I’m terrified that something like this could happen to us.

When it first happened I couldn’t sleep, I cried every day for a week, and I was completely distracted at work. Part of me feels selfish for letting it get to me like this. What a luxury for me to be able to cry and then comfort myself by hugging both of my kids. Something these parents – the ones who really need comforting – can’t do. I guess all I can hope for is that this family can somehow find a source of comfort and strength to move on, but they will never get over it.

I met the mother the other day. I was amazed at how … together … she seemed. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I have so much respect for the way she carried herself. She was strong and confident, well-dressed and accessorized. She even looked rested. But occasionally I’d see her mind wandering during a conversation and during those times she looked tired to the bone, but otherwise you never would have known. How is that possible?

Brian has seen the father a few times, who also seems to be holding up relatively well. Or at least faking it well. They played golf the other day (at a golf tournament that was renamed this year in honor of the little boy, and happened to be played the day before what would have been his third birthday) and the father had a rough morning but apparently was composed the rest of the day. I don’t think I could be that strong.

This family will probably never know how they’ve affected me. I’ve realized how lucky my family is (because luck is the only way I can explain it). I now have a role model for how to be strong, or at least appear that way, when times get tough. And I have perspective to accept what we have and acknowledge that no matter how frustrating things can be, it could be far worse.

Now if I could just stop tearing up every time I think about him … (I’m sure they feel the same way).