Some Mama's Baby

I read Katie Allison Granju's book Attachment Parenting a long time ago, even before I married Sean, before we started trying and I started failing at reproduction. Years before I got that positive pregnancy test, this book, and its wise and perceptive author, resonated deeply with me, and informed the way I would think about parenting from then on.

Of course I was delighted to find her reporting insightfully on the under-covered Kingston ash spill, and sent her a nice email; not long after that I friended her on Facebook and started following her blog more closely as she found herself pregnant with a fourth child.

Then something very bad happened: her oldest child, a son, Henry, in the throes of addiction, overdosed, was badly beaten and left for dead. He fought for more than a month in the hospital. You can read about it at Katie's blog (linked above), but what you need to know is how it ends: that mama's baby died today. I can't begin to comprehend her grief, or the vertigo of losing one child while eight months pregnant with another.

I've been telling Sophia, growing like a weed, that I need to pick her up and squeeze her before she gets too big to lift; I've been appreciating the vestiges of her baby-ness as she approaches five years old, kindergarten, days spent away from me, that unavoidable separation. Today I was sitting outside and she crawled up next to me on the chair, whispered in my ear: "Mama, you have to pick me up while you can."

I did.

Comments

[lisa]

So so so sad...it could be any of us in her shoes, and any of our babies. There just aren't words.

[Lilian]

I just found out by checking out her blog. How incredibly sad...

[gretchenosis]

sophia says the heaviest things....

so incredibly sad. i look at philip sometimes and try not to see him as a teenager, trying drugs, liking them too much, the downward spiral....

[Fakey]

That is just awful.

Vertigo, indeed.

[Diana]

It's just devastating.

[Rerto Jordans]

Your blog is perfect! Very good article gives a person see admire that has a kind of feeling! Xi xi you share!