Until it does.
The odds of losing a child before you lose yourself…by age 60, in US, is about one in ten.
I was only 45 on May 9, 1987, when it happened to me.
I am reading Fi: A Memoir of My Son, by Alexandra Fuller, whose son died at the same age my son did (21), 37 years ago. The quote above is from her book; It has been an accidental read--I saw it suggested at the bottom of the last kindle book I’d finished and having loved her other books, ordered this one.
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The Surgeon General has declared the state of loneliness a national health issue. I read about this in my various news sources, and while I do believe he is absolutely correct, I haven’t felt very much aware of its applicability to me. After all, I have a loyal husband of sixty years, a caring son and his wife, three special grandsons, a sister and a niece, many wonderful friends, a loving black lab, an ongoing and fulfilling teaching and writing career.
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I was going to tell you about the great Zoom re-creation of my women’s writing group last Sunday, when seven of us joined for the day to express in words the many feelings and thoughts prompted by poems I shared, but I’m not going to do that.
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So why am I not writing about Ukraine, the threat of nuclear attack, Hershel Walker and his lies, the January 6th commission hearing, my fears around the midterms, the devastation of Ian, how the first frost was such a surprise that I hadn’t covered my dahlias?
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A few weeks ago, Megan Markle, Dutchess of Sussex, asked this question in an op-ed column of the NYT, The Losses We Share. She wrote about the miscarriage she’d had and the terrible grief it brought. She spoke about what it had meant to her, while traveling with Harry in South Africa, exhausted and breastfeeding her first child, trying to keep up a brave front, to have a reporter ask her, “Are you okay?”
She answered that she was grateful to be asked, saying that not many had.
I’ve been pondering that question ever since, wanting to ask it to those of you who read these posts.
Answering it to myself.
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