As many of you have been or are currently, I was consumed with the question WHY? I needed to make some sense out of these tragedies.

Why was Scott, a normal full term baby, only to experience difficulties during labor and expire after only 16 hours of life?

Why was Erin miscarried?

Why did the truck turn in front of Lance?

Why was Lance going too fast to stop?

Why wasn?t he going a little faster so he could have avoided the accident?

Why did this happen to us?

Why were we being punished?

I read everything I could get my hands on about grief and bereaved parents, hoping that some place in one of those books the answer would appear.

I looked for an answer in my spiritual life. I asked Scott, Erin and Lance to help me with the answer. I was relentless. I was on a mission that took me to meetings, conferences, mediums, counselors, clergy and experts.

All to no avail.

There doesn?t seem to be an acceptable answer to the ?why? question at least not in this time and space. So it occurred to me that perhaps I was asking the wrong question. Maybe the appropriate question is WHAT?

Let me explain. Down deep inside I know I will see my kids again and when I do they are going to ask me ?WHAT did you do with the rest of your life??

To me it seems that when a child dies we are given a second chance at our own life. It?s as if the slate has been wiped clean and we get to start over, only this time we have talents or skills we did not have ithe first go around. These gifts make this second part of our life more valuable and the question ?What did you do with the rest of your life?? therefore much more critical.

Think about this for a minute.

We have a new definition of the word ?important?. Many of the things that we thought were important before our child died now fall into the trivial or the inconsequential. We now know what is truly valuable. Part of the answer to the ?WHAT? question lies in how we live our lives given these new priorities.

We have new insight and perception. In my business life I do not generally share the deaths of my children with my clients and associates. However, I have been in numerous business situations where I have felt compelled to pull back that veil slightly and share my story. Every time I have felt that need and acted on it, I have discovered another bereaved parent or sibling in the audience. It?s as if we can tell when another person is in need and we reach out to listen and care. Another part of the answer to ?WHAT? is trusting in this insight and acting accordingly.

We have no down-side. Most of my life decisions have been made after doing a risk/reward analysis of the situation. Since the death of my children I have found that there is very little risk associated with decisions. When I ask myself what is the worst that can happen, the answer always pales when compared the death of a child. We can see the difference between mistakes and setbacks and real tragedies. We are free to take chances, follow dreams and live life to the fullest because we can throw off the shackles of fear.

We appreciate what we had.? Were it possible to turn back the clock to the time before our child was conceived and given the choice of having that child only for a short time or not at all, my sense is all of us would take the child. So we come to appreciate what we had, not what we lost.

We have a real measure of our love. Early on, when the grief was intense and the pain was fresh, it was comforting to feel the pain was the measure of the intensity and depth of our love for our children. Over time as my grief matured, I have come to the conclusion that the real measures of my love of them are those things that I do in their memory. And the real measures of their love of us are these gifts that they have left behind for us. To be continued
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