His son had left this life tragically and much too soon.  I never knew exactly what happened and I never asked.  I figured if that was knowledge I was supposed to have then someone would supply it without me making a formal—and none-of-my-business—request.  But honestly, the circumstances didn’t change the end result—a family left to struggle with loss they did not understand but had to accept.

Whenever he calls on business I always let the conversation run its natural course and, when I know the pleasantries and updates are over, I ask how he and his wife are doing, as well as the rest of his family.  They have four other children and I know the loss of the first born—the big brother–has to be tough on everyone.  During one of those conversations, while he pondered life as they now know it, he said something I thought was exceptionally profound.  “Whenever anyone asks, I’ll always tell them I have five children.  I’ll always have five.”

Note the tense of the verb in his statement.  I’ll always tell them I have five . . . not I had five.  It is his way of telling the world that this child is no less important—and no less his—just because he is no longer here.  His absence from this planet does not diminish the life he lived or the position he occupied in the family.

Honestly, that’s true no matter how old a child is when Death stakes his claim.  If they are newly arrived you have still anticipated that arrival for nine months.  You have watched as they grew.  You have planned and prepared as their birth approached. You have hoped and dreamed of their future, and although the watching and planning and preparing and hoping and dreaming may have been in vain, that child is still a part of you.  When you start adding years of life to the equation, and all the memories those years can hold, the bond grows even stronger, and it will not be broken by Death.  Because, you see, no matter the length of their life, no matter the timing of their death, that child is still your child.

And they always will be.

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