Have you ever noticed how, when something out of the ordinary happens in your life, you begin to see it everywhere you look? As if your eyes have been opened to a possibility you hadn’t imagined until it happened to you?

This has been my experience with child loss.

Since Clara passed away an astonishing proportion of the books I’ve read have referenced the death of a child. The theme repeats itself on television show after television show. Even movies that seemingly have nothing to do with the loss of a child will include a peripheral character whose life has been shaped by it.

Thankfully, most authors and script writers don’t get the emotion quite right. They clearly haven’t experienced it first hand and fail to understand the nuances of parental grief. Only those of us who’ve been through it will pick up on the superficiality and falseness of the drama they’ve created. And that’s a good thing. The truth is nothing I would wish on a casual reader or viewer.

While it’s possible that I’m more drawn to these stories than I might have been in the past, I don’t purposefully seek them out. In fact, I avoid books and television shows whose back covers and episode descriptions are forthright about their content. I don’t need the words of fictional characters to convince me how devastating the loss of a child is. I live it each and every day.

I suspect instead, that I’m just more sensitive to the topic than I was before it became personal to me. That I’m simply sittin’ eyes wide open and I got one thing stuck in my mind…