Julian | in reflection Wednesday
30May
The Greatest Tragedy
Wed, May 30, 2007 | 1 Comment Personally, I find funerals for small children the hardest to take - the grief is always palpable and acute.
Yesterday, I attended the funeral for the one-month old grandson of some dear friends, Uncle Robert and Aunt Wendy. The tragedy and the irony is that we just celebrated Brandon’s fullmoon last weekend.
The images of joyful laughter and beaming faces from last Saturday night which are still fresh in my mind are suddenly replaced by tearful faces and an immeasurable sense of sadness hanging in the air on a searing Tuesday afternoon.
As I survey the scene before me, with hot tears boiling in my eyes, it is almost too much for my heart to take - if it hurts this much for me, how much more pain can Brandon’s parents and family endure? It just blows my mind to imagine myself in their shoes.
In the TV series Six Feet Under, Brenda (played by Rachel Griffiths) says: “If you lose a spouse, you’re called a widow, or a widower. If you’re a child and you lose your parents, then you’re an orphan. But what’s the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that’s just too f—-ing awful to even have a name.”
The greatest tragedy for any parent is to have to bury their son or daughter. Children should be the ones to bury their parents and not the other way around.
Julian | in reflection 
Reader Comments (1)
I don't know Brandon but reading this alone is enough to make me weep. RIP, little man.