Life is fragile

     In reading about the train derailment in Ellicott City the loss of the lives of two young people is the element of this story that is the most tragic.  For all of us the most tragic experience we can ever experience is the death of one of our children.  If you ask me to identify the worse day of my life it would be the day I visited one of my children in the hospital after they had a life threatening medical emergency.  To see one of your children with multiple tubes and monitors and not be sure what the next few days would hold is something that will always be seared into your memory.

   Recently NPR had a story on the loss of a son and  Lorenza Colletti described it this way:

"It's like a nightmare," Lorenza Colletti says more than 14 years later, choking back tears. "You go to sleep at nighttime — if you can even catch some sleep — and then you wake up in the morning and the nightmare begins all over again. And it's all over again, day after day.

"I mean, when your child is alive, you don't think of him 24 hours a day. But when he's gone, that's the only thing that's on your mind. And then you walk around and you see maybe someone wearing a cap that reminds you of your son, and you quickly turn — maybe that's him. Your mind plays so many tricks because it's so hard to really understand the depth of what has happened to you."

    Here in Howard County we have two support groups for persons experiencing the loss of a child.

 Bereaved Parents of USA
Meetings: 3rd Wed. at First Presbyterian Church
9325 Presbyterian Circle, Rts. 29 & 108 E
Columbia, 8:00 p.m. (includes sharing group for bereaved parents of infants & miscarriages)
Call: 410- 461-3272

Howard County Hospital
5755 Cedar Lane
Columbia, MD 21044
Mary Peroutka, 410-884-4709
www.hcgh.org/content/greystone_2470.htm

P.S.

The topic of today's blog was a little heavy so I wanted to leave with a video that you might leave you with a better mood.