Introducing the latest contributor to my parenting adventures…Clara Rue.
(Author’s Note: the name Rue came from her Great-Grandma, not “The Hunger Games”).
Clara joined our family last Wednesday and is a healthy and, we are hoping eventually, happy little girl.
(Really, who wouldn’t be agitated after being forcibly expelled from your 98.6 degree bath? I can’t blame her for being a little cranky.)
But with the infinite joy of our daughter came the crushing reality of life’s fragile nature. On the same day that we welcomed our little girl, dear friends of ours lost their son. He was a sweet and wonderful boy who made an impact well beyond his own family and well beyond his years.
Very shortly after, as everyone knows, many families in Connecticut also experienced the loss of a child.
Even though we had not seen our friend’s son in many years and did not know any of the children in Connecticut, we still felt their losses, that of our friends’ son in particular.
His death was sudden, unexpected. Not the result of a terminal illness or a lingering injury, it was the result of a freak accident at home. His passing is the type of tragedy that makes you ask, in the grand scheme of the universe, why? Why was this life cut so intolerably short?
With instances of loss, we parents often try to find a lesson. We do this in order to give ourselves some kind of sense of control. We try desperately to impose order on the unimaginable and to reassure ourselves that we can always keep our loved ones safe.
Unfortunately, we can’t keep them safe all of the time. Our friends were forced to imagine the unimaginable last week. Through these circumstance I am reminded that all too often there are no easy answers, no reassurances, that no matter how hard we try we are not able to protect our children from everything.
Last week, tragedy struck a loving home, too many loving homes. For now I have nothing but prayers for those grieving and hugs for my own children, particularly one little girl whose arrival completed our family.
Chris Donnelly is married with four children. You can read him every other Thursday on momaha.com
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