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By Root 1019 0

needed was becoming a battlefield, and in spite of ourselves it was falling apart, with no sense of the promise of support, tomorrow or the next day or next year, from a precious family that we knew understood something of our grief and our love. When Debbi turned out to be a paid Catholic bereavement counselor and was asked to quit posting sectarian requirements for the eternal life of our children, it was the small rock that started an ugly avalanche. There were many defections of people who could not endure the pain of this kind of debate. Not wishing to add our frustration to the messy public forum, Gordon and I wrote privately to each other every night about the plain constant shape of our grief: The day was bad enough, I wrote him after following a particularly contentious exchange, and the weather good enough to justify two trips to the cemetery today. That will be my measure for a crummy day now: a two-cemetery-visit day.

I was desperate. I needed this place. I wrote to everyone involved in the discussion privately, and I spent whole days and nights typing letter after letter to each of the participants. To Cheryl, a Jehovah’s Witness, I wrote, You do not need to defend your faith to me. I respect your faith. Am I remembering right that your son Keith loved Isaiah? I have been thinking about the God of Isaiah today, thinking that God demanded loyalty and promised blessings in return. And thinking also what that God promised for those who did not follow him. It is harsh, Cheryl, you know it is. How cruel it would be to quote some portions of Isaiah to those of different faiths, to those who pray daily for the eternal protection of the souls of their children, but do not pray to the God in Isaiah? I thanked Debbie, who wrote privately but never posted, for her support, and I stated the problem bluntly, I was simply asking that someone think about the Jewish man before they order pork for everyone’s plate. To Lois, The tremendous strength of your own faith is not a measure; I wish it were. The vulnerability of our community is the measure. Yet here, of all places, you say we are on our own.

I hope you will not unsubscribe, I wrote to Maribeth. Even in our worst moments, we are strong because we are connected. Next week and next month we will need each other. Not just you needing us, we will need you. When someone leaves, I do not think of just the adult leaving, I think also of the memory of the child leaving our midst. I would miss Gregory. To Donna I wrote, I think you and I have some special gifts. Our boys, who both died in automobile accidents in which the passenger walked away, left wonderful writings defining their views of life, their hopes and expectations. You have shared Charlie’s wonderful poem “The Future,” I remember. I remember thinking how like Wade’s prose writings they were. Having these gifts does not make us better, but it makes us stronger, more able to weather the worst of times. And then there are people like Marge, whose son killed himself at sixteen. Her frailty is written in the few posts she makes. It is almost as if she cannot get the words to the page. It is easier for us. It is impossible, I know, but it is easier. And those gifts, like the gift of faith, place on us a special burden, to be gentle with those without the gifts, without the tributes, without the strength of unbridled faith.

This story would not be accurate if it seemed I had been roundly persuasive and that all was well when I spoke. It was not. But in the end, the differences were bridged, the community salvaged. Publicly, with great relief, I wrote, Our children lived for minutes, or for decades, or not at all on this earth. We stand here, a group of parents who dearly loved their children, loved them so much that we need support from places like this just to move through the days that we must now live without them. A thousand foolish things separate us, yet we somehow manage to ignore those things that might have, in the halcyon days before, have kept us from one another. And now we stand together. We are like the web