Dead Children

There’s a new dead child memoir (as I call books written by grieving parents) coming out that I’m looking forward to reading. I read an excerpt in Atlantic Monthly yesterday and really liked how the author (Colin Campbell) seemed to be thinking and talking about grief and the weight of his own thoughts. (The book is called Finding The Words and it’s to be released March 14.)

Campbell talked about how people sometimes say to parents of dead children “There are no words,” which can be difficult to hear because there are a lot of words we want to hear, like our own children’s names. And your memories of them, no matter how small. He also talked about not liking it when other people discuss processing their own grief (about a parent, or a pet dying, or some such experience). This actually does not bother me at all.

Perhaps this is a male/female difference. In terms of communicative style, women are known for their propensity to build on the communications of others and their search for connectivity. At any rate, I have no problem hearing how awful someone felt when their grandfather or their beloved dog died when they talk about Sarah; it makes me feel that person is trying to build on her death and enter the community of grievers. But Colin feels differently, as if his experience is not being given enough weight. Of course, I have my prickly little peeves too about things people say, as I’ve written about here in this blog.

Colin lost two children at the same time, in a car accident, which must be incredibly devastating. I hope writing was a solace to him. I know it’s been very helpful to me. In the beginning, I had this obsession with telling “the story of Sarah” in a very linear fashion, from birth (or before) through her death as if I were writing her biography. I kept worrying that I would leave something out and the fact that my thoughts were never in chronological order made me anxious and depressed. The whole thing seemed to be turning into a medical saga, “Race for the Genetic Code!” or some such thing, with which I wasted several weeks in Microsoft Word.

My good friend from high school, Susan Hillenbrand Avallon, who is a story editor (or something) in the film business, gave me some good advice to just let Sarah’s story have its own shape and logic and not try to control it. To write about what was on my mind, as if I was talking to a compassionate and nonjudgmental friend. So I started this. And the rest is history.