Grief & Loss
Two faculty members in the Health Behavior & Health Education department lost children this week in totally inexplicable and heartbreaking circumstances. Both were daughters. Both instances were unexpected. One was a doctoral student in the Health Management and Policy program and in her early 30s; the other was a nineteen year old nursing student. They both passed away in their sleep.
I do not know these professors well; but I am consumed with grief for them. To lose a child must be the absolute worst experience to ever be put through–no matter what the age. This compounded by the sadness I feel for the King Family in San Diego for the brutal murder of their daughter, Chelsea, has made it a week for reflection on how impossibly attached and in love I am with my son and how I couldn’t and don’t want to ever imagine life without him. I can’t begin to put myself in the heads of those parents who have lost their babies (be they seven months or thirty years); its too painful to try. My heart is just breaking for these families.
I cried when I read this today. One quickly becomes very attached to ones children, our hearts are forever linked; deeply and forever. It is unimaginable the loss of a child of our own or of any other once we feel this very deep love. It is a joy for parents when their own children have children as they now know how we feel about them. You are loved.