Happy Thirtieth Birthday, Daniel

       

 

                                                                 Picture: Cakes by Amy

 

    Today would have been Daniel's thirtieth birthday.  He is loved as much as he was while he was here.  We still remember him with fondness and amusement , particularly when we recall his jokes and song parodies.  Happy Birthday, Daniel.

 

 

 

Merry Christmas Daniel, 2025

 

 

              Merry Christmas, Daniel.   It's so hard to believe that you departed for Heaven seventeen years ago now, and that you would be twenty-nine years old had you remained on Earth.   I know that Jesus is with you and that you and Matthew and my Dad are together and that you have met, most likely, with relatives and ancestors I know about, but may never have had the opportunity to see or with whom to speak.

              Sweet alpaca Cammie is still alive, and at about 24 and is the only remaining animal you would have known while you were on Earth. She is enjoying her remaining life, but may join you sooner rather than later. You are missed very much, as is Matthew. Your stockings still hand at the fireplace with the others at Christmas. You are also in our prayers at Christmas dinner.

               We love you (and Matt and Dad) so, and each day we get closer to seeing you again.  I love you, bug. My best regards to my Dad, your Dad's parents, Matt, and to my mother if you see her. My Nana, Joan and Edna might also appreciate a remembrance.  XOXO

        

Happy Birthday ! Daniel Would Be 29 !

 

 

                      I can't believe that you, my love, would be twenty-nine years old today !   The last time we spoke you were twelve and a half !   So much has happened in our family and in the world since your departure.  I know that God will let you know anything you are meant to, so I won't waste our time updating superficial things here on Earth.

                      Suffice it to say that only one animal that you loved and that would remember you remains here on Earth.  The alpaca Warrior Princess Camellia is just that. She is substantially beyond normal lifespan, yet fights to remain here, reluctant to join her mother Queen Isabelle, her father Ditto Two, her brother Chocolat and a sister she did not know, Shakria.  I know she misses her uncles and other herd mates,many that you did not know, that were here when she was young and middle aged..  We watch her closely, and she still loves her life, but someday soon, she will be coming to you, and to her animal family.  Perhaps God doesn't think I can handle the loss of anyone else who is dear to me, and this is why she remains.

                      Your brother Matthew has been gone from Earth now two and a half years.  I am not doing well with his loss. I try hard but I am bitter having lost two sons, and despite the fact that I tell myself that God blessed me with children and what should be a good life, I sometimes can't see past these losses.  I also miss my Dad very much. I pray unceasingly.

                       Thank you for visiting in dreams. I appreciate those visits from Dad and from Matthew also. 

                      I will probably never be okay with your having to depart at twelve and a half, but I tell myself that each day I live, I am closer to a reunion with you, with Matt and with my Dad and the animals. I also will see our Lord.  I must have been very prideful to think I could do all I set for myself here on Earth.  I have stumbled since your departure, and been lost more than a few times.  You certainly had a very human mother.

                        Happy Birthday, Daniel.  I love you deeper than the oceans and wider than the seas.

       

 

 

Daniel's Sixteenth Christmas Letter

                                                     Image by Nightingale Craftery

    Daniel,

                  If this letter finds its way to you, then it has been sixteen years since you suddenly passed, the day after Thanksgiving in the year that we here on Earth know as 2008.  So many things have happened here on Earth since then, that although I miss you terribly, I also have come to find a certain amount of relief that you aren't here on Earth to have grown up with economic uncertainly, medical system corruption, political corruption, and to try to earn and living, navigate a marriage and raise a family here in this era.   It's hard to imagine that since your departure I have gone from thinking that your passing is a 100% terrible thing, to perhaps a benefit to you, as you were spared many of the difficult if not terrible things that happened in the world afterward.

                As you know, thirty plus hours after what should have been an ordinary influenza vaccine, your brother Matthew passed, only a week later than you, fourteen years after your passing.  As brave as I was when you departed, I have not found the same grace for the loss of a second son.  I had less reserve, and I have not bounced back in the same manner. I am also not as fine a person as you knew then.  I battle bitterness now.  I used to be the "better person" who would conjure the situation and circumstance that would help those who are lonely to get out in the world again.  I don't do that anymore, and I don't fill the silences in conversation with others as I used to.  I don't have the reserve, and I have become accustomed to the silence.

                Please know that I still love you and Matthew, and my Dad who is there with you, with all the love I ever have, but that my energy has dipped, the result of too many Earthly sorrows and losses.

                 Please know that you are loved wider than the ocean and deeper than the seas, and that this will never change.  Please know, I write this letter here to you, rather than sticking a copy in your Christmas stocking, which incidentally, is up at the mantle with the others, just as it always has been.  How do you like the Wedgwood medallions on the mantle, as Jefferson had them at Monticello ?   I'll have to see you again to have that particular question answered.   Merry Christmas !

 

Memories of the Music Cafe

 

                                      Daniel and Mom, in about 2007, a year before his passing
 

 

                Some years ago, our rural county had a music cafe where people could sit, have lunch or dinner, a drink or a snack, and could watch performers on a small stage across the room.  In the back there were multiple rooms where the owner could give music lessons. The food was quite good and it was a great place to go especially of you didn't wish to drive too far on a Fall or Winter evening.  In this era, Stephanie and Adam were in college, but each week, usually when I took Matthew and Daniel to the library, in the evening we would stop off in the music cafe.

               The owner was a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and performer in his own right, and found that founding the music cafe was a way that he could earn a living doing what he loved, while still being at home at night with his wife and young children.  Eventually, the challenges of music lessons, running the restaurant and cafe, and scheduling the acts and weekly activities became overwhelming, and the founder sold his business to a trail of other restaurants, that never seemed to capture our interest the way the original one had.

               Today, almost fifteen years after Daniel's passing, and almost two after Matthew's passing, Nik and I made a rare stop at the county's Dunkin' Donuts.  It was a cold day, and we thought a couple of donuts and some warm drinks would hit the spot.   A man ahead of us was ordering something similar.  I recognized him almost immediately as the founder of the music cafe.  For some reason, he remembered me also.   I told him how much we missed the cafe, and asked him what he and his family were doing now.  He is still giving music lessons, mostly guitar.  He was shocked to hear that both Daniel and Matthew have now died.  He had missed hearing this about either of them. He looked sad when I told him.  I told him because the music cafe had been some of the very best memories I'd had with Daniel and Matthew.  Even when there wasn't an act playing there, we could watch the wide screen television with country music acts performing while having dinner.  It had been a regular weekly habit for us and we had thoroughly enjoyed it.

              Make sure you make as many memories with your children as possible whenever you can.

 

 

 

 

A Birthday That's Never Forgotten

 

 

                                         This is a picture of how Daniel might look at 28.

 

 

 

                 Tomorrow would have been Daniel's twenty-eighth birthday had he remained here on Earth rather than departed sixteen years ago, of presumed sudden arrhythmic death syndrome at age 12 1/2.  Immediate CPR did no good in this instance, and when the sheriff brought the AED, too much time had elapsed.

           On these birthdays I always take a moment to think about what he might be doing had he remained, and how we might have celebrated this day.   Instead, I still man the fort, or the farm as it is, and try to find ways to keep sane, now missing two beloved sons from Earth, both Daniel and Matthew.

                 I still think of you an awful lot and I remember your conversations and thoughts you had.  Gosh Daniel, you were so intelligent and so wise.  No wonder God needed to call you home.

 

                This year, I am going to try to celebrate your life differently than with grieving.   Perhaps rather than being sad, and after sixteen years, I can simply celebrate your life and your time spent here on both the day of your birth, and on the day of your passing.  Lets see how that goes.

 

                 In any event, I am one day closer to seeing you again.  It's a fact I keep tucked in my pocket, a bit like a secret gift, but try not to talk too much about because it upsets the other members of the family.

 

 

                                                          Daniel departed Earth at 12 1/2

 

 

                 Happy Birthday, Daniel.    I love you wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas.

 

    Yes, I can hear you, but I doubt you could possibly "love me more" than I love you.

 

Daniel's Annual Christmas Letter

 

                           Daniel as he might appear this week, had he remained on Earth with us.

 

  Daniel,

 

         When I first started putting an annual Christmas letter to you in your stocking at Christmas, I wasn't sure how long it would continue. The year you passed, so suddenly, I had so many things I needed to tell you. There were things I was not sure you knew.  Last year, I began placing them electronically, here and on your Forever Missed page.  

          This past year has been very hard.  You have been gone now for fifteen years, and your brother Matthew has been gone for a year.  I know you have a basic perspective of how things are or will be, but again, from me, we are doing our best. Some days, we do better than you might anticipate and you would be proud of us.  Other times, it's hard to put one foot in front of the other, and to clean and organize for Christmas when sometimes we might prefer just to skip it this year.

           Your memory has never faded.  Your jokes, your comments and your attitudes about things are never forgotten, and they are still a source of amusement here.  Only one of the animals here on the farm that you knew when you were here, still remain alive.  Fifteen years is a long time in the animal kingdom. Warrior Princess Camellia (the black alpaca) still remains alive, although she is quite elderly.  She is doing quite well medically at this moment, but as most alpacas do, she will eventually become ill, usually within the course of one day, and pass before the next. She still lives a beautiful life and we hope she remains as long here as possible.  I know that you will he there to encourage her when she does eventually depart.

            I love you so, Daniel.  Please take good care of Papa Lawrence, your brother Matt and the others there with you, including the animals. I know they will try to do the same for you.

            Your "Turkish brother" and friend Onur has provided a picture of what you might look like if you had remained on Earth and I have posted it above.   I love you wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas. Yes, including the inland sea on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. 

A Year of Loss and Confusion

 

                         Daniel at 12, Matthew at 32, joined in

                        an artist's fanciful picture of them.

 

                   Fifteen years ago, Daniel died suddenly, the day after Thanksgiving. A year ago, his brother Matthew, 32,  died in his sleep, a couple of days after an influenza vaccine, just a few days before Thanksgiving.  In a sense, grieving for Daniel stopped this year, in its frozen state while we tried to wrap ourselves around a new task, settling the estate of a suddenly lost adult son, and the grief and issues that surround his terrible and unexpected loss.

                   In some ways, the sudden loss of Daniel, and sudden loss of Matthew, years later, are similar. The loss of each son was also very different. The loss of Daniel was the loss of a child. We lost a child so teeming with potential that it was gobsmacking.  He had so many skills and interests and we could not wait to see what he would do with them, and then in an instant, his spark was gone from his flesh suit. We would not be sitting back to enjoy his victories in life. 

                    The loss of Matthew, as an adult of 32, who has achievements,college graduations, good jobs, a network of friends, and who was a partner in the family business wasn't just a personal loss, but a professional one that endangered my husband's business, and leaves its future uncertain. In this year, we worked settling his business matters while simultaneously grieving the absence of another bright spot in our lives.  Having Matthew with him in the business meant that it had expanded, and that there was plenty of work for two of them. When Matthew passed, this meant that more work than could be done by one engineer existed, and that deadlines might not be met. It also meant that the business had expanded beyond its abilities to continue to produce, and that it must now shrink.  My husband threw himself into work, and worked fourteen to sixteen hours most days, in order to deliver on the businesses obligations.

                  I also focused on what could have happened to Matthew. Although vaccines do result in deaths, on occasion, they do not often take adults without a known diagnosis or other health history. I was focused on two autopsies, a VAERS report, and how a simple flu shot could have taken Matthew. There are theories on what may have happened, but they remain just that.  Matthew was a healthy man who died in his sleep. His toxicology was negative, and his eventual death certificate reads "cardiac arrest of indeterminate causes".  They haven't even mentioned his influenza vaccine, and I am told, they never do. Matthew had not received any of the COVID vaccines, and had a mild short course with COVID at its relative beginning.

               And so we continue. We plod along having the Thanksgiving that Daniel and Matthew would expect us to have.  Daniel loved Thanksgiving. He loved the meal and the family gathering, and then our propulsion into the Christmas season. It makes me sad to think that he has missed the last fifteen of them here. Matthew missed last Thanksgiving, and now this one too. He usually contributed a dish or two, and he enjoyed the day off and the gathering with his siblings and their families.   As the business became better established, he was likely on the edge of moving out, although we would have seen him often, because of the business at the very least.

                 There is no choice though.  Both Daniel and Matthew would expect us to be the people we always were when they were here. They would not want us to stop what we are doing, or to be so destroyed by their departure that we did not live our remaining lives, and so we do the best we can.  We take one uncertain step forward after another. Eventually, we will have to deal with the essence of their losses. I miss each of their thoughts on situations, politics, and what they wished to do in the future. I miss their friends being part of our lives as they were. I miss seeing the futures that each of them would have had.  Happy Thanksgiving to each of you and to your families, regardless of your circumstances this year.

    (Lettering size was increased for those of you who read this blog from a cellular phone.)

Daniel's Forever Missed Page

 

 

   For those who have an interest,  Daniel has a remembrance page here:

 

 https://www.forevermissed.com/daniel-krehbiel/about

 

 

 

Missing Daniel

 

                You might think that after fifteen years, I might understand that you are now twenty-seven years old and that you would be significantly taller, larger, and that you would likely look quite different.  Since your father, and two of your brothers have beards, you are very likely to also.  And yet, in my heart the soul I miss, the soul often in my dreams, is you looking very similar to the young man when I last saw you alive, walking, talking and speaking.

                 I know that from many Christian faiths, we are thought to grow in Heaven if we go there as a child, and that ultimately, the mature soul may stay looking as most of us do around thirty.  And yet, it's my twelve and a half year old son who lives on another plane.

                 I love you so much, and even after the death of your brother Matthew, I still grieve your not being here, along with him.

                  Please know I try hard to keep all the promises I made to you the day of your sudden departure.

 

There Have Been Too Many Passings

            

 

   Some years ago, when our family first moved to this intensely rural area, there were few general stores. Once a week or so, the kids and I or occasionally just Daniel and I would go to a general store for milk or bread if we had no other plans to go into a distant town for something else. These general stores also had a couple of gas pumps.

                Not long after we moved to the area, one of the general stores sold to a couple of men who were partners, and who had big plans for the store. They planned to have a small bakery, a delicatessen with quality meats, and to make quality pizza and calzones on certain nights during the week.  Once they adapted to country life, which took some time, our kids often didn't wish to accompany me to the store, even if it meant the possibility of getting a Yoo Hoo or a couple of small York peppermint patties.  One day Daniel came with me, and the storekeeper was making homemade oatmeal raisin cookies and offered one free of charge to Daniel. The cookie must have been pretty good because after that, Daniel almost always wanted to accompany me, either to try a chocolate chip cookie or just to say hello to the shopkeeper himself, who liked Daniel and often spoke to him while I was there.

               As Daniel grew, and then died suddenly at 12 1/2, the storekeeper I mentioned was devastated. He questioned me on what I had seen and what I had missed, and how such a thing could have happened. I explained that the medical examiners had believed Daniel's death to be due to something called sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, and that under present technology of the time, that it likely could not have been anticipated, and therefore prevented. Somehow the poor man got the idea that the almost weekly cookie he had been giving to Daniel had contributed to his death.  I did my best to explain that Daniel's coronary arteries on autopsy had been as clean as a whistle. His passing had been surmised to be a failure of or short circuiting of the rhythm system, the electrical system of the heart.  Still, the man seemed to carry some guilt about this, and he occasionally mentioned making better food choices to people who shopped in the store, and he also periodically dieted himself.

               I wasn't sure how to convey to the man that what had happened had not been his fault by any stretch of the imagination.  Of course, I too was struggling from time to time with my own insensible guilt.  How good a cardiac nurse could I really have been if I saw absolutely nothing before the day Daniel passed ?

              Afterward, my husband and I honored a wish that Daniel had, and we adopted another child. The ultra rural place in which we lived had more new homes built, but after 2010, many changes came. Our shopkeeper friend became disillusioned with the tax structure, and decided to move to another nation where he had relatives. We were sorry to see him go, but we understood he wanted to move to a place with more certain profits before starting his own family.  He and his partner sold their business, and no one locally seemed to know anything about them afterward.

              This week I learned that our shopkeeper friend indeed moved out of the country. He married and had just had a baby boy before he too died suddenly.  I cannot tell you how sad I am about this.  Not only did we lose Daniel just after my father in 2008, but we lost our son Matthew in 2022 just after an influenza vaccine.

              In the COVID era, I cannot tell you how many friends and acquaintances in our rural area, of all ages, have passed suddenly. A few of them had a pre-existing medical problem they were battling, but many did not. They were physicians, housekeepers, builders, nurses, writers, school teachers, county administrators, teens, children, and they were from all races and walks of life.  Many of them were couples. One would pass, and then within a year, so would their spouse.

 

             I am consoled only by the idea that in Heaven Daniel can greet our shopkeeper friend, and Matthew can show him how he learned to make his own dough for calzones, inspired by the shopkeeper. My Dad can laugh as they all swap stories about the rural place with unyielding summer heat that we all have loved so much.

            I and the rest of the family still think of you all often, especially on this sweltering Independence Day.

Daniel Finally Gets His Cat

                

 

 

   Readers of this blog may remember that Daniel, 12,  passed in late 2008, and that on his birthday the following year, a friend of ours said they had a gift for Daniel.  Our friend Jan allowed us to pick one of her six week old kittens as a birthday present for Daniel.  We would love and raise him, and someday when he passed, Daniel would finally get the cat he wanted, but couldn't have, due to allergies during his time on Earth.

                   I picked a beautiful sleeping kitten who was about six weeks old, and took him home. We named him, exactly as Daniel would have, which was MacIntosh II, after a cat who belonged to a friend that Daniel liked a great deal.  MacIntosh I,  actually attended Daniel's Celebration of Life in a cat carrier.

                   Very quickly, MacIntosh II became Tosh. He was a healthy, inquisitive and a very bright cat who adapted to life inside our farm house. Tosh was not only highly intelligent, but he was adaptable as well. Over time, we added two little dogs inside the house. We have other dogs in a kennel on the farm who do patrol and animal corralling duties.  When we would leave the house, we would tell the tiny indoor dogs, "Be Good. The cat's in charge", and he was.

 

 

                    Tosh has been a special family member to my husband and I, our adult kids, and he's special to our grandson, Nik as well.

                                                

                                                    Tosh as a baby cat

                Tosh has truly been a joy. He was incredibly gentle even after Nik was born and spent a lot of time here. Toddlers are often tough on cats, but Tosh always knew he was a growing child, and never once scratched him.  Our daughter sent us a video recently that shows Tosh walking on the piano as if to simulate practicing scales. Tosh found many ways to entertain himself and to entertain us.

                It's hard to believe that fifteen years has gone by. So much here has changed, and so much has stayed the same. We knew that Tosh was getting older but he was healthy and moving well and we didn't dwell on it much.  A couple of weeks ago, Tosh had a stroke, and was recovering from it. Then, a couple of days ago, he wasn't eating well, and was just drinking. He was checked for diabetes, which was negative.

               Tosh was a little anxious last evening and we made sure he got a lot of love and attention. We told him that we thought soon he would pass and go to God, and that God would make sure Daniel got his cat.  This morning, I checked on Tosh, helped him drink some water, repositioned him, and told him how much we loved him. At 6:36 am, he passed.  The cat is as beautiful as a cat whose soul has passed to the next plane, as he was alive.

              Thank you Tosh for helping us as we were grieving for Daniel. Thank you for giving us endless hours of companionship, amusement and joy. You were an uncommonly bright, loving and human cat in so many ways. I know Daniel will be thrilled to have you join him. I love you Buddy, and we all do.  Please send love to Brielle (Adam's cat) also.

              Today, it is raining hard as if the angels are crying, just as are we.  

Prior posts on the subject of Tosh, "Daniel's cat"

https://learnedfromdaniel.blogspot.com/2022/06/an-update-on-daniels-cat-tosh.html

 

https://learnedfromdaniel.blogspot.com/2013/02/time-with-tosh.html 

 

https://learnedfromdaniel.blogspot.com/2009/06/tosh.html 

 

 

 

Happy Twenty-Seventh Birthday, Daniel !

 

      This laptop cake did not exist when you were last on Earth, but I would have made one for you now !

 

         This week it will be your twenty-seventh birthday, and yet I can remember the day of your birth and the day of your passing with a crystal clear clarity that may not be true of many other of the events of my own life. Please know that as we mark your birthday here on Earth, that we know that you, and now your brother are beyond our horizon, and safe in the world beyond this one. There is not a day I don't remember you, and there is never a day I don't laugh at something you once said, and I often share it with your oldest little nephew. I am not good at being without you, but I am determined to make you proud. With much love to you, Daniel. 

 

 

 

Daniel's Christmas Letter: Christmas Eve, 2022

 

 

 Dearest Daniel,

I know I haven’t been very available lately. As you know, your brother Matthew passed in his sleep seven days before the fourteenth anniversary of your own departure from Earth. Losing a second son has been difficult, and also very surprising. In some ways, the time of year, was like your passing, but in many other ways it was quite different. You went from being awake and conversant and collapsed and died quite quickly. I was able to try CPR, but I got nowhere. We had trouble reaching EMS on the phone that day, and it took twenty minutes to get someone out to help and to get an AED. This time, Matthew had gone to sleep late the night before and also had been perfectly fine. He passed sometime in his sleep, probably in the early morning hours. With you, we knew right away, but with Matthew, it was likely hours before we knew, because it wasn’t unusual for him to sleep late after being up late the night before. This time, I wasn’t able to try CPR, and the AED we bought to keep here in the house could not be used because Matthew had been dead too long. This time was also different in that when we called for help, the dispatcher answered immediately and a paid EMS crew, no helicopter this time, arrived at the house in what I believe was about four minutes. With you, I was in shock, and I didn’t cry until your body had been taken from the house. With Matthew, I knew too quickly this horror, and I cried immediately. I was less together this time. With you, I felt your spirit was probably hovering above the room and that you needed me to handle everything, and that I might frighten you by descending into tears and hysterics and so I didn’t. With Matthew’s passing, I felt that it had occurred possibly hours ago and that he’d followed you to Papa Lawrence and to God as soon as he could. I felt terrible that I had not known in time to try to save him.

This time was also different in that the medical examiner declined to examine you last time. We procured a private autopsy, which didn’t really give us much other than a cardiac arrest potentially due to a potentially hereditary sudden arrhythmic condition, such as Long QT Syndrome. This time, the politics of sudden death is quite different and the medical examiner claimed jurisdiction. We never did receive a phone call from them and we waited a week through Thanksgiving. Eventually, we transferred Matthew to the same location that did your autopsy. We still don’t have a report, but we surmise from the things said that could be related to the flu shot he had received 38 hours prior to dying in his sleep.

Yes, we are all deeply sorrowful for this turn of events. We also tried to correct the things Matthew had not liked in your Celebration of Life, and had one for him that would have been more to his liking. I believe you both saw what we tried to do there.

Please know that although it is desperately difficult to have half our children beyond our own horizon, we know that you and he accept that we all belong to God and that we return to Him. I don’t know why God chose to call each of you, but I know we will all eventually be together again. Until then, you are both still our sons, and we will see you again. Please know we will continue to do our best with your siblings, your niece and nephews, and your animals, some of whom are still alive from your own time, Daniel.

Please know that we love you, Matthew, and my Dad with all our hearts. You also have your Dad’s parents there, who knew Matt and loved him very much. They both passed before you were born. There are other ancestors there who can also guide you. Please tell Matthew what I have said in this letter, and tell Papa Lawrence also. Matthew’s friends also miss him a great deal.

Merry Christmas Daniel, and everyone. I still remember our last big hug as if it were yesterday.

 

  Love, Mom

 

Sudden Death Strikes Again.

           

                     It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved son Matthew.  Matthew died suddenly, as of yet uncertain cause.   Matthew had a flu shot two days before his sudden passing, but it is also fourteen years ago this week that his younger brother Daniel, died suddenly of what is surmised to be Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome.   Matthew had been worked up for this following Daniel's death, as were his other siblings, and although one sibling had a cardiac ablation as a result, Matthew was felt to be clear of such a problem. In this life, there are no guarantees.

                  We await autopsy results, and pray they are definitive.

                     Matthew was in his early thirties and had worked as a Cybersecurity Engineer, and most recently as a Fire Alarm Design Engineer.  He was a terrific son, brother, uncle and great friend.  His passing is a great loss.

https://www.forevermissed.com/matthew-d-krehbiel

       

Perhaps an Answer

                

 

      Any parent who loses a child here on Earth carries a certain amount of insensible guilt.  God gives us a child, and our first obligation is to try to keep that child safe in a world that is full of hazards, at almost every age. The challenge, which is to love, educate and teach that child not only to live in the world but to flourish in it, is a large one.  So, we look for the best schools, the best churches and the best doctors, and even then sometimes, we miss something, or something somewhere goes awry.

             I remember the day Daniel died as if it were yesterday. One moment my extremely bright youngest son was talking to me, and the next moment, I heard a crash in the bathroom. I found him in a full cardiac arrest, and I began CPR. I asked other family members to call 911 and ask for the medical helicopter for a child in a full cardiac arrest. I remember wondering what could possibly have done this to my healthy child who'd had a clean physical just a couple of weeks before.

            Despite the sheriff's office using the AED and a very competent team of professionals from the helicopter, we were not able to restart Daniel's heart at any point during his code.  This has always bothered me because I have been lucky.  In the hospital setting or outside it, I have never had a patient who received immediate CPR for a witnessed cardiac arrest, not respond. (Although in all honesty, I might have gotten them back only to have them die later that day.)  It has always bothered me that Daniel did not respond in any way to the CPR. It was as if he were gone when he hit the floor.

           As longstanding readers will recall, initially his autopsy was very good. His coronary arteries were as clean as a whistle, which is not true of a number of 12 1/2 year old American children. His brain was normal, although they were some incidental findings that did not cause death. Pathologists were left with a healthy child who was clearly dead.  Daniel was made a teaching patient, and different pathology teams at a world class teaching hospital each took a crack and what might have happened.  Because Daniel had entered the bathroom, vomited, collapsed and fallen forward, the pathologists felt that this had likely been a sudden arrhythmic death, which is basically a spontaneous disruption of heart rhythm of unknown cause.  While toxicology was sent, the doctors used the time to question our family on other cardiac or arrhythmic deaths among our relatives, or other arrhythmic disorders among those who remained living. I shared that we had a fair amount of atrial fibrillation among the over age seventy members of the family, although no one we knew had died in the manner of Daniel.   Eventually, because sudden arrhythmic death syndrome or the other diagnosis SUDC, which is sudden unexplained death in childhood, are disorders from a functional problem not a structural one, and nothing of any interest was yielded from toxicology, Daniel's passing was attributed to a sudden cardiac arrest of uncertain etiology, or cause. His DNA and other samples were sent to the Mayo Clinic who was studying whether he might have one of the many identified familial causes sudden cardiac arrest. Some of these are Brugada Syndrome, Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, Long QT Syndrome, Short QT Syndrome, etc.  A long time afterward, Mayo Clinic communicated that Daniel did not show evidence of any of the familial arrhythmic syndromes that could be identified from DNA samples at that time.  Perhaps he had a syndrome that has not yet been identified, they speculated. (Of course, this began the odyssey of having our remaining children examined and having a preventive cardiac ablation done on one of them.)

          Fourteen years later, I am still left with the feeling that I have missed something, and that this is somehow my fault, even to some small degree.  Since then, some clues have emerged within the remaining family.  There are family members who have erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), some with Crohn's Disease and one with cystic fibrosis.  All of these disorders are associated with, or can lead to a Vitamin D deficiency.  Interestingly, even as a young person, I have been found to have a very low Vitamin D level at intervals. I have also been fairly resistant to having this corrected, requiring relatively large amounts given over a long period of time before it is corrected.  How could this be ? I have asked.  The answer I get is that some people lack the enzyme to manufacture Vitamin D from sunlight and cholesterol.  No one asked whether this could have been a familial issue.  Even if it had been, there had not been an association between low Vitamin D levels and sudden arrhythmic death. However, there is now.

            Recent studies have shown that people, including children with low Vitamin D levels have a much higher rate of dying from a sudden episode of arrhythmic death.  If Daniel had a familial tendency to have low Vitamin D, coupled with a missing enzyme in order to make Vitamin D from sunlight, could this be the missing part of the puzzle ?   Physicians do not routinely test for Vitamin D levels, and they don't often check in children. There was no known reason to check, and at the time, no known association with sudden arrhythmic death. It is only now that we know from several recent studies that low Vitamin D is associated with ionic channel disorders which can lead to sudden alterations in the EKG such as the QT interval.  

             For those of you who have a medical or personal interest in this, this is one of the authoritative articles, which I believe is the easiest to understand.

 

 https://journals.viamedica.pl/kardiologia_polska/article/download/82363/61698

 

             When Daniel died, we had not had history with other family members that indicated that we were all Vitamin D deficient.  We all took vitamins, except for Daniel who wouldn't swallow pills and was not sold on taking his chewable Flintstone's vitamin daily.   I do so wish I had known this.  In 2008, physicians did not suspect that any of us were low in Vitamin D, and perhaps they didn't even know of familial Vitamin D use disorders.

             It is my hope that this post reaches someone that it may help.  Some of us persist in having low vitamin D levels even when supplemented, and this may require regular monitoring as well as prescription amounts of this vitamin.  To simply blindly replace Vitamin D without proper monitoring may be equally dangerous.   If you suspect this is an issue for your family, please see your doctor and ask for a Vitamin D blood test.

 

 

An Update on Daniel's Cat "Tosh"

        

 

     The original post concerning "Daniel's cat" Tosh, was written thirteen years ago tomorrow.

 Tosh is now a mature cat, still has occasional respiratory allergies and is doing very well.

 

 

 As you may remember, the last thing Daniel and I spoke about before his passing was a cat. We spent the prior day, Thanksgiving with my eldest son Adam's fiancee and her family, and they had a remarkable cat named MacIntosh, which they call Mackie. Mackie had been rescued by Adam's fiancee's sister and myself from the inner workings of a new car at the Post Office. I had been unsuccessful and Adam came with tools and the owner of the car was gracious enough to let him remove and reattach parts in order to save the little cat. Despite his cat allergy, Daniel became quite attached to MacIntosh and took Claritin in order to play with him. Of course, I had to turn down Daniel's request for his own cat. He accepted this, due to his allergies, and a moment later, he went into the bathroom, and passed away.
Yes, those of you who attended Daniel's "Celebration of Life" saw a cat in a carrier politely and seriously enduring his funeral, and that was MacIntosh.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of Daniel's and mine, gave us a kitten. It is a cat that resembles MacIntosh a great deal. This cat will be raised as "Daniel's cat" and will be loved and cared for. Eventually, when his full life is complete, he will pass and become Daniel's very own cat. Meanwhile, "Daniel's cat" is bringing great joy here. He is named MacIntosh II, or "Tosh" for short. This cat is similar, though not identical to MacIntosh the First in appearance, and I think is a bit more active and perhaps more of a mouser.

A Culture in Decline

               

 

         Some years ago, our family lived in a lovely neighborhood in a Virginia suburb. We had four large bedrooms, a full finished basement, an acre lot, and it was an ideal home for homeschooling.  It also had the benefit of having been my in-laws home. When they had died in their fifties, and my husband had inherited a quarter of the home, he financed the remainder and bought his siblings out. My in-laws would have been happy to know that their grandchildren would be growing up there. This enabled us to have the space we needed to raise our family without a high mortgage.  Daniel was born while we lived in this lovely home.

                  Although we lived there for a few years, our disillusionment with the area began fairly quickly. It was a good neighborhood, but almost immediately, strange things happened, that had not been happening in the neighborhood our last house had been, even in the same county. At our new colonial, children would show up during the school day and tell us that their mother had said that if they were ever sent home from school sick that they were to come to our house, because we were the only home where someone was home during the day. We wouldn't have minded this had a prior arrangement been made, but we had no idea who these children or their parents were, and we had intended to go to a dental appointment one of those days.  We became aware of a number of homes where domestic issues were common. We also had a schizophrenic man come to the door one day claiming that "People in the neighborhood wanted him dead".  Once, a beautiful mailbox flag I had hanging beneath the mailbox was shredded, most likely with scissors.  As time passed, there were more and more feral children running through the neighborhood, seemingly without any sense or supervision.

                When Daniel was one, we bought large acreage in another part of the state, built a smaller home than we had in the suburbs, and moved. We wanted the children to have the opportunity to have livestock, and to gather skills that are most often learned in rural environments.  We also wished to head off their becoming good consumers, which had already been happening.

                 Our children thrived both academically and socially in an intensely rural environment, and I know we did the right thing.

                 Tonight I am sad to learn that in the very same neighborhood with the beautiful colonial where we once lived, that there has been a mass shooting. According to police, there was a party where there was a fight. Police were called, but while they were en route someone was shot. Many were shot and at least one has died. At least four different weapons were fired during this altercation.  Someone was killed on the very same road in which my children rode their bikes when fairly young.

                 The problem is not firearms, just as collecting all the steak knives, hammers and tire irons wouldn't change it. The problem is a culture in decline. The problem is that no one is home to raise children. Mothers are working, parents are divorcing, and day care centers can't be parents to children.  Children are growing up to have no acquisition of empathy, and are connected only to a violent and vicious peer group collective via phones or computers. The culture is annoyed by children, doesn't understand them, and does not defer pleasure to do what is right for them.  We saw this at the end of the nineties, and the shootings are simply a symptom of it.

                  Please pray for our nation and particularly for its children.

Happy Birthday, Daniel 2022

 

This is the posting to your twenty-sixth birthday. Somehow, we are almost fourteen years from the date of your sudden departure. We still miss you very much. Yesterday, your nephew lamented to your sister that he missed you. It seemed a ridiculous thing to say, even for a young child because he had never known you on Earth. However, you departed at the end of 2008, and he came to Earth in 2014, and so there may have been time between 2008 and 2014 for you and he to get to know one another. Perhaps he is telling the truth when he says this. Please know that no matter how long you have been gone from here that we still think of you daily and we miss you and Papa Lawrence. Sometimes, I allow my mind to drift and wonder what you would have done here on the Earth had you remained. There are a lot of situations on the Earth that have deteriorated since your departure, in politics, in medicine, in government, and in education. Sometimes, I am pleased you were spared some of this on the particularly bad days. You are always my son, and I always love you. Sometimes, when something momentous happens, like when I met your newest nephew for the first time, I feel your spirit beside me. I love you deeper than the oceans, and wider than the seas.

 

 

 

A Missing Month

             

                         Photograph taken by the Richmond Times Dispatch on Interstate 64 which has fallen trees on both sides of the highway.

 

   I hadn't meant the entire month of January to fly by without any postings anywhere, and yet this is exactly what has happened.  The entire family caught a non-COVID influenza like illness which felled everyone like trees just after Christmas.  Just after, an unexpected storm with very wet snow and ice occurred overnight causing actually trees of all kinds to break wiping out everything from power lines to telephonic pedestal boxes and rupturing the actual roofing of many.  The result was a bit more than a week without electricity, and a bit more than two additional weeks without landline phone, cellular phone and internet.  A couple of additional storms made both restoration and getting out again less likely.

                  We pumped water for ourselves and the farm animals using the generator, and we ran the generator for a few hours each day, but shortages of diesel and propane meant that we could not run anything for very long.  In addition, shortages of hay for horses, dog and cat food make life difficult for us when we did get out again.

                Please check on your family and friends in the American Southeast.  This has been an uncommonly cold and difficult early Winter, even without the complications of supply line disruptions and fears for COVID.

                 Frankly, I'm glad Daniel missed this month here on Earth !