Content Warning: Child loss

 

 

 

I cannot write about my life today.

A sweet 11-year-old little girl who attends the same elementary school as my kids, died from cancer this morning. I feel a melancholy settling over me as I process this news.

I am not close with the family though we know each other from a distance. Our oldest kids are the same age, so we’ve been navigating the same places for 10 years. We would say hello in passing but that’s the extent of our friendship.

That doesn’t stop my heart from aching for this child’s parents, siblings, and friends.

I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, but I know something about grief. I know this pain doesn’t go away. That they will always miss her. Wondering what if she’d been allowed to live, where would she be now?

It isn’t fair.

I hate it.

Life always seems to end too soon but this one hurts.

I don’t have any words of wisdom in me today. All I can do is hold this child and her family in my heart. Recognizing that her death is bringing my experience with grief and death front and center.