Driveway Moment^SM

On the Loss of a Child
A compilation of excerpts from literature, poetry and memoirs that deal with the death of a child.
Morning Edition - Oct. 7, 1998

Suggested by John, who listens to WETA in Washington, D.C.:

"I actually sat in the parking lot at work several years ago, 1998 I believe, (when I worked at the NIH) to hear an interview with Mary Ann Semel, one of two editors of the book A Broken Heart Still Beats: After Your Child Dies. She said that she and the other editor, Anne McCracken, did not want to create a self-help book, or a book that offered people a pathway from their pain back to the normal and status quo. Rather, they culled what people write, both fiction and non-fiction, about the death of a child.

This purpose of the book Ms. Semel said was to help anguishing parents realize they weren't alone, and maybe help them put their anguish in words -- that is, to hear how others who had walked the same path attempt to describe the nearly indescribable pain.

I was riveted; I cried so hard in the car (I'm beginning to tear up now thinking about the indelible effect that story had/still has on me). Some of the excerpts from the book were bittersweet, a few were beautiful, others horribly sad, still other stories allowing people who have not felt such pain a peek inside a room that can only be lived in (rather than described) to be understood.

I remember especially hearing about Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, it is said, on his deathbed spoke the rather enigmatic "That beautiful boy." It was thought that maybe Emerson was referring to his son who died at age five. After all the years since his son's death, Emerson, like any other parent suffering the same predicament, was still thinking of the boy. The "what could have been." The "why."

After that story on NPR (Morning Edition), there was a break back to the local NPR stations (mine is WETA in Washington, D.C.). It may have been during the time of a pledge drive because there were two announcers present. There was a long silence. The man began to speak, but then could hardly talk and was so choked up that when he did talk his voice kept breaking. The other announcer, I believe a woman, lightly comforted him, and talked in his place while regained his composure. She too was obviously affected by the story. I walked to the lab with red, swollen eyes. Later, that night, I bought the book and cried hard some more."

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