We all feel the death of a child

We were among scores, maybe hundreds, even thousands, who shed tears for a child we had never met, had never even heard of just days before. Such is the impact of the loss of a child.

We learned from our son of the illness of a classmate's young daughter. She was hospitalized with bacterial meningitis, and the prognosis was dire. By the time we heard of it, she was already in what he called "miracle territory." That's what doctors said it would take for her to survive. Despite fervent prayers from friends, relatives and strangers, the little patient did not survive. We received the heart-wrenching news this morning.

Before that curtain fell, we had read a forwarded e-mail from the mother, filled with gratitude for all the prayers, concerns and best wishes for "our precious girl." I read it, utterly astounded that this young mother could put together those words so eloquently, despite the burden on her heart.

Every parent's greatest fear is the death of a child. Fortunately, few parents have to endure such a tragedy. When this happens, all parents feel the horror and the gratitude of that dagger to the heart that barely misses. There but for the grace of God ...

The "sweet girl" whose parents now face a "world forever changed" was just weeks older than our son's younger child, who had himself faced a frightening bout with pneumonia when only a month old that left him hospitalized for a week. Modern medicine allowed him to come home and grow into a healthy toddler. This new tragedy slaps us with the reality of how close we had come to a similar fate. Nearly 30 years ago, a colleague's firstborn son was hospitalized with meningitis, and the young parents stared blankly at the shattering of their hopes and dreams. That baby survived and has grown to adulthood, but fate could have twisted another way.

Years ago, my brother and I sought out and found an old family cemetery, which had been untended for decades and was overgrown with trees and weeds. Walking among the stones, looking for names we knew from family histories, I happened upon a small grave marked by a stone larger than the grave space. On the top of the moss-laden stone were carved two words: "OUR BABY." At a time, in the early 1900s, when couples produced broods of eight, 10, 12 children, this ancestor of mine grieved for the one who was lost. Having a half-dozen other children to love could not fill the vacuum left by the one who died far too early. Even in a house filled with children, the loss of one imposes a world "forever changed."

The death of a child is so powerful, you don't even have to know the child or the parents to be knocked askew.