When Children Die

This is going to be a very heavy post.  I'm not going to write much myself, or talk about my connections to the subject, because it affects me too much emotionally at the present time.  Instead, I'm going to leave several quotes.

From CNN: Mother recalls night flood changed everything
September 23, 2009

[...]

The force of the water slammed Bridgett into a tree. The 24-year-old mother fought to straddle a branch and wrap her right arm around another one -- the left held the 30-pound boy tight to her. She yelled for Craig, who called back from another tree.

"Where's Slade at?" she hollered.

From the darkness, and above the roar of water and rain, she heard her 26-year-old husband respond: "Baby, I don't know. I lost him."

He had slipped through his arms after they'd jumped. An 18-foot wall of water hit them both.

Over and over, Bridgett screamed her son's name.

Preston Slade Crawford
December 12, 2006 - September 21, 2009
Master Preston Slade Crawford, age 2 of Horsley Mill Rd., Carrollton, passed away Monday, September 21, 2009. He was born December 12, 2006 in Carroll County, Georgia the son of Bridgett Danielle Lawrence Crawford and Jerry Craig Crawford, Jr. Besides his parents, Slade is survived by a brother, Cooper Gunner Crawford; paternal grandparents, J.C. & Pat Crawford of Carrollton; maternal grandparents, Glenda & Royce Rowland of Augusta. Funeral services will be conducted Friday, September 25, 2009 from Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel with Rev. Joey Dedman and Dr. Steve Davis officiating. Interment will follow in Carroll Memory Gardens. The family will receive friends at the funeral home Thursday from 5 PM until 8 PM. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to First National Bank of Georgia, Donations for Slade Crawford, 201 Maple St., Carrollton, Ga., 30117. The family will like to extend their sincere appreciation to Carroll County Fire & Rescue, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, the many volunteers, Department of Natural Resources, Carroll EMC, Georgia Forestry, Carrollton City Fire Department, Carrollton City Police Department and Carroll County Inmates. Messages of condolences may be sent to the family at www.martin-hightower.com. Martin & Hightower Heritage Chapel of Carrollton has charge of the arrangements.

The passage below connects me to my religion, and also to the history of my father, who as a baby also came very close to death in postwar Japan.

From Toshikazu Arai's blog, Echoes of the Name: Dharma Talk at Fraser Valley Buddhist Temple


As we live our life, we meet new people and part with old acquaintances. Meeting and getting acquainted with new people is usually a happy occasion, but parting brings sadness. Especially parting with loved ones by death gives us a great pain. My parents died more than twenty years ago, but even now, I sometimes feel as if they were sleeping in the next room when I am not fully awake in the morning. Then I realize that I am a fatherless and motherless child, all alone in the world. It might be that by departing from this world, they made me truly stand up on my two feet.

People often say someone had a long life or another one had a short life. However, there is no saying which person's life is more valuable. What is important is what meaning the person's life has had to "me." Each person comes to this world with certain tasks to perform and depart after fulfilling them. Even the life of a baby who has died a few days after birth has a meaning. For example, the little boy who Kisa Gotami gave birth to and died at about four acted as a Bodhisattva for her by guiding her to the Buddha Dharma. I used to have a sister who died at one and a half years old just after World War II. I was wondering what was the meaning of her life, now that I am the only person who remembers her in the world. I realize that by departing from this world, she gave me what would have become her food in order to let me survive the poverty and sever lack of food just after the war. Because I have been able to live, I have had the fortune to meet the Dharma. If I attain birth in the Pure Land, she would certainly welcome me there with joy.

I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in meaning.