So… this is kind of a weird thing to write about here, and I’m not even really sure it’s my place to write anything about it at all. But it’s just… I can’t stop thinking about it, and I want to tell someone, because I have no idea how to deal with it. (and goddamn, it’s so selfish to even have that as a concern.)
A friend’s newborn son died today. And it’s a complex situation – not something that was sudden, or not even necessarily a real possibility from the start, which maybe made it one of the most terrible things I’ve ever seen. The parents have been … I dunno how to put it, really – incomparably brave in the face of unbearable difficulty.
The difference in perspective between having a child of my own and not is extraordinary. Before being a parent, I think it’s easier to say, “This is the situation, here is what is realistic.” Now, it’s easier to understand how you would move heaven and Earth for even a moment with your child.
There is some bond, some …furious… connection that I feel towards my son that I simply couldn’t articulate to the pre-father me. There aren’t really words to describe it. To say that a moment when he puts his head on my chest makes my entire life worthwhile seems strange, an understatement so vast that it is a massive failure of language.
Their situation, it’s utterly unimaginable to me – I think like that bond between a parent and a child, there’s an inability to truly empathize because there’s nothing in my life that even comes within leagues of their experience – I have no way to understand it, other than to imagine pain equal in proportion to the love I feel for my son, and the thought is too terrible to bear.
It’s …disorienting. The simple fact is that on a day to day basis, one never has to actively remember that this kind of tragedy is real. And knowing that it is throws everything out of perspective. Except one thing – that I love my son, my family, with every fiber of my being, and that I remember how valuable the moments we share are, and how damn lucky I am to have them.
RIP, P.