I was walking around the office, showing off some new pictures of my girls to a group of select co-workers. A woman I'll call Kay called me over so she could take a look. I don't know Kay very well, but I do know that her 18-year-old son, her only child, was killed in a car accident a few years ago. I showed her the pictures and thanked her for her compliments, which were effusive. And I walked back to my desk wondering how it was possible to show joy over other people's children when you have lost your own. I know that people do it, I know they have to move on, but I just can't imagine how.
And as I write this, I have the feeling that I'm being insensitive, that I'm suggesting that a good mother wouldn't be able to move on from grief. I don't mean that at all. I know that if I were ever tested in this way -- which, needless to say, god forbid -- I, too, would come to a day that I would be able to be happy again, to enjoy life again. But the process of getting there is beyond my comprehension. I can't see how I could ever come to accept that a life without this:
would ever be a life I'd want to lead.
1 comments:
I, too, wonder how people go on after the loss of a child. I know they do, but I doubt they ever feel complete joy again. I know I wouldn't.
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