What do you say to a man who has suddenly lost his only child?

I don’t know.

As a parent, how do you recover from having your life, your blood, your heart, torn from you? When the rest of your life changes in an instant and your hopes and dreams that all centered around your child are inexplicably shattered…how much strength must it take to force yourself to keep breathing? How do you get up and live the next day, knowing that you’ll never ruffle that head of hair or hear those giggles again, that every notion you had about tomorrow was just an ill-formed illusion?

I don’t know.

Had it happened to me, I’m not sure I could.

I don’t know this man. He’s more like a friend of friends. But I cry for him.

There is an internet effort going on to send a gift of support to his family. If you wish to transcend distance and participate, you can find more information here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.