Death of A Child

Today I wept many times.

When I first saw the article in the newspaper this morning, my heart raced.


A quick call to our playgroup coordinator confirmed my greatest fears.
It was one of our children, and one of the mum's whom I have got to know quite well.

She and I had many things in common:
She's from Taiping, the same hometown as my parents, and so we speak the same kind of northern Hokkien;
Her husband and her name both start with 'M' and so her son also carry the letter 'M' for his first names - and she was trying to help me think of one for my next boy;
She recently began to be interested in blogging and we share the same "not so high tech" status.
She was always very approachable and she would talk to all the mums;
She was assigned the duty to hand out our name tags (I did this last year) and so she learnt everyone's name in no time.

I wept when the coordinator told me what the mum had said about the accident.

I waited for more news as to when they would have the funeral and cremation.

While waiting we took the boys out to visit a another friend.

By the time we got home (no calls in between) it was 5pm.
I called the coordinator again and she gave me the mum's contact number.


We talked.

"I'm sorry to hear about Matthew.." was all I managed to start with.

She had been hysterical at the time of the accident and cried so much, she said, that she just kept herself focused on the procedures of the necessary.

While she talked, relating the incident to me, I wept.

"Please call me anytime you need anything. Just to talk, or if anything I could do to help..."
was how I managed to end with.
After the phone call, I went to put up the laundry and wept some more.

I have to admit it's not that I was very attached to the child, but because I was close to the mum, I just felt the pain and the loss. Only another parent can imagine how awful it would be.


I don't know what to say.
When words fails us, only tears would be meaningful enough.

:..(