On Fragility

Harley Dilly

One of the results of experiencing the death of a child is that you learn that it isn’t rare. Until my son Daniel died of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, the day after Thanksgiving, eleven years ago, I had only known one person who’d lost a child, other than in stillbirth. Following Daniel’s death, I think many people I’d known felt the need to convey that they too had lost a child they too had been half way through raising. People who, until then, had been acquaintances told me that they had lost children to car accidents, choking while eating, to leukemia, to unrecognized Type I diabetes mellitus, and even to the flu. I learned that the loss of a child isn’t nearly as rare as we would like it to be. Still, I am one of the lucky ones in that my child was loved, happy and healthy, until the moment he wasn’t. I did immediate CPR on him while the sheriff brought the AED, and the helicopter ICU landed on our farm in front of the house. I was probably the first to know he hadn’t made it, despite the fact that I let them try for a considerable period of time afterward.

As a result, I have a lot of empathy for those who have lost a child. I have particular empathy for those whose children are missing. My grief is simple. I lost my beautiful youngest son at 12, but I always knew exactly where he was and what was happening, and I know I did my best. In the US, we have huge numbers of children who are missing. Sometimes, these are teens, children or kids who were temporarily housed in foster care. Sometimes, these are children or teens who have been snatched by non-custodial parents. Sometimes, these are teens or children who are the victim of stranger abduction, either by pedophiles or human traffickers who want them for other reasons. I know where my boy is, but many do not. Not to know where your child is, or whether he needs you, must be one of this Earth’s most difficult feelings. It is for this reason that I profile missing teens and children on my social media pages. Today, Amber Alerts are often quite successful and a child may well be returned to his or her parents, and so it’s worth the effort and the occasional grief I myself experience.

On December 20^th, a fourteen year old Ohio teen was reported missing by his family. Harley Dilly quite literally disappeared without a trace. No one saw anyone abduct him, and hundreds of local citizens and the police combed about a hundred and fifty acres looking for him. Each day, I combed news reports in order to keep my own social media listings of missing kids up to date. All through Christmas and New Year’s Day there was no news on Harley Dilly. Yesterday however, his body was found by police in a summer home around the corner from his own, within the chimney. It has been theorized that possibly close to the hours in which Harley was first reported missing, he had climbed a large antennae which enabled him to enter the chimney of the empty house. His coat and his glasses were found near the flue. His body was found wedged tightly within the house’s chimney. Harley had been there almost four weeks before he had finally been found. Police had actually considered searching the house, but the windows and doors had been secured when they searched and so they thought there had been no way he could have entered. I am praying for his family and for those who searched for him, and especially for those who found him and dealt with the aftermath.

Because I am older than Harley Dilly I know that periodically a burglar is found dead within a chimney. The lucky ones are discovered by a homeowner, and emergency services deconstructs the chimney while taking the perpetrator first to a hospital, and then to jail. If you are an EMS or Law Enforcement officer, and you are looking for a person with dementia, confusion, or a teen or child, please consider checking both ends of any chimneys. If you are a parent or a grandparent, you might consider telling the children you know that chimneys are not built as some of them were in colonial times or in our folklore. Many of them might be very narrow in the center or may have a flue that makes them impassable. This Christmas when I was reading a story to my grandson, I conveyed that when Santa comes to our house that we don’t have a chimney that can accommodate him, and that we just let him in when he arrives.

The vision of an adventurous fourteen year old trapped in a narrow chimney, cold, thirsty, fearful and unable to take a deep breath, haunts me, as I’m sure it does his parents, his family, and the people who were involved in the exhaustive search for him. The medical examiner released the cause of death as compressive asphyxia, which implies that he died rather quickly, and not over days or weeks as my own imagination had been considering.

There are too many ways to lose a child. Make sure yours know how much they are valued, and how much you love them. Help them to identify the reasonable hazards in your area. Most importantly, have compassion for those who have lost a child, have one missing, or who must seek or recover a child as part of their occupation.

Daniel's Uncommon Wisdom

          

         This week, a pretty blonde actress was televised receiving her Golden Globe award. She was obviously pregnant, but made a point of telling us that she believed that she wouldn't have been receiving the award had she not chosen to abort an earlier child, some time earlier, presumably in order to work on her career in order to attain the level of success she now had. It was a shocking thing to say, or even for her to believe.

              Of course, I have never been in danger of receiving a Golden Globe award.  When I look back on the few acting gigs I have had, other than voice acting,  I think I am about as an abysmal actress as I am a cook.  I had four biological children, and one child who came to us through adoption. There were foster children in between. For me, the most joyous and most important achievements in my life have been those children.  For me, no book, no record or CD, no job, no home or estate, no business, and certainly no award, is as important to me as having raised those children. Each of them have been true joys in my life, and I am really proud of each of them as young adults.   

             I was fairly young when I started to have children. My first two were born a year apart when I was just out of college.  My shower gifts had to be practical ones like diapers and wipes. I had no changing table, special toys, or cute clothes, other than shower gifts or gifts from friends. I struggled with pediatrician co-pays, and I missed work when they were immunized and became febrile. My life hasn't been a picnic. Our crib was a portable one that fit the tiny room we had for the kids then.  Each time a child was born, we had prospered somewhat, and I think we had an easier time financially, when our third and fourth children were born. 

              When Daniel, who was our youngest, was almost five, he asked me what an abortion was.  He'd apparently heard the word on television.  Since I always answer a point blank question truthfully to my children, or to anyone else, I explained that it was the removal of the placenta and the fetus from a woman before it could grow to the point of being able to live outside the woman's body.  "Why would someone do that?" he asked.   I tried to step carefully here, as I didn't need to tell a four year old boy all of the aspects of this complex issue all at once.  Instead I told him that sometimes there are very good reasons to remove a baby very early. For example, a woman with a serious medical problem that requires treatment that may not be possible if she is pregnant, sometimes necessitates a very early abortion. "Like cancer?" he asked.  It wasn't until a few years later that I told him that my aunt had chosen to give birth to her own son despite the fact that she required lifesaving treatment that required she was not pregnant at the time of treatment.  Then he said something I will never forget.

        "God is good", said Daniel.  "It only takes nine months from your life, to give someone else a whole lifetime," he said, in awe.

      "Yes, that's true", I answered. "And usually women are limited for only a portion of that nine months". 

            Daniel, of course, grew to know that sometimes abortions are done in the cases of rape or incest, or for a variety of medical problems for the mother.  I remember mentioning to him a twelve year old child who'd had a abortion in a hospital because her seizure disorder was badly controlled and that she was unlikely to survive a full term pregnancy, even if the baby had been placed for adoption afterward.   But I was glad that he understood what a gift and a blessing that a child is to a woman and to a family.  I told him how happy I was that I'd had all of my children and not missed out on raising them.

            There is no award that could have taken the place of having any of my children, but then, that's just me.  Even though Daniel departed this Earth at twelve and a half, there is nothing on Earth that would make me wish that I had chosen not to have him or to enjoy the twelve and a half years that he was right here within our family.