Several deaths in my community have left me feeling bewildered. A mother and a father died the last days of December, leaving behind a one-year-old and a five-year-old. I feel terrible for these children who lost both of their parents, and not to Covid as you may have thought. A double funeral is planned this week.
Another non-Covid death: the death of an infant barely a week old. A first child. A difficult pregnancy. I feel so badly for the mother. To carry a baby, to birth a baby, to hold a baby, and then to inexplicably lose that baby so soon.
A poem in empathy:
Have I ever been distraught by the death of a young thing?
Of course. Kitten crushed by Dad’s truck tire as she slept under.
Dead bird who hit my plate glass window seeing reflected sky and broke her neck.
Dead dog on the side of the road-my black lab puppy named Benjamin. He escaped from the porch.
Dead horse, she died at a feisty 25, a beautiful mare named Princess. She seemed young to me.
Dead mother. She died at 64. I am two years beyond that now, and I wonder why.
Dead sisters, one died at birth when I was eleven. And another, she died at 60, and she was so beautiful.
But I haven’t had to face the death of my own child. For that I am terribly grateful.
The emptiness would fill an ocean.