The Fear of My Children Dying Before Me

This is tied to my Six Fears post…

I am sincerely having a difficult time writing this.  I do not even like thinking about this possibility, although I won’t lie, I know that I am not guaranteed a single day with my children.  I want to impart to them the faith that my mother gave me.  I want them to know that regardless of how much time we are allowed here on earth, we will always be together.  We will meet again, in a place far more perfect than any life I could provide them down here.

The thought of having to put one of my children in the ground is terrifying.  Like my brain is not really even able to mull the thought around.  I’m pretty sure I would just shut down.  I’d do what had to be done in the physical realm, but I would in no way be able to mentally maintain.

It’s an unnatural concept, burying a child.  There are too many parents who have buried a child and too many who have had to ask whether or not they are still a parent, because their only child died.  I do not ever want to have to live in that reality.

I struggled a lot when I was TTC (trying to conceive for you fertile people).  I wanted to bring a child into the world, and yet, I didn’t.  We live in an evil place.  The world is so much different than when I was a child, than when my parents were children.  The days of letting the kids play outside and run around town without worrying every second, are gone.  Long gone.  The days of food being safe are long gone.  Our daughters are turning into women astonishingly early.  And that’s a topic for another day.  But the point is, things have changed, and the world is full of all kinds of kinds.  It’s got a lot more creepers and a lot more ways to creep and be creeped upon.

And so, between the creeps and the chemicals and the random circumstances and accidents, there is greater odds that a parent will have to bury a child.  I hope that if I ever have to hoe that row, I will be able to do it with that same faith that my mother gave to me.  Because that will be the only way I would ever survive burying my child.