Loss of a child

As I walked the precessional I saw how you looked at your little girl, resting in her pink casket, made perfectly clear to me the father’s heart you carry, a place where bodily strength and will have no power, but the purest, most heartfelt love finds its place.

I was devastated by your glances at her. A checking, re-checking, a confirming of whereabouts. The parent in me checks, checks and checks.

There is no love like the love the brokenhearted man has for a daughter or son. It is beyond time or place. That kind of love is its own temple, a cathedral made of your right-here-ness. Legacy.

As grief digests loss, love will come whenever it has a place to be met.

For me you are the face of manhood. You are a father that embodies masculinity in its vital ways: you feel but aren’t undone by it; you’re strong but heartfelt; you’re lost in your grief, but whole.

And I’m sorry. So, so sorry.