Devastation

So I’ve read a couple books in a row that dealt with death.  And not only death, but death of fairly young people.  I know that sounds like a bit of a downer, and I suppose it is.  But I’ve always like the downer mood, because I’m good at it.  Most people don’t think of that as impressive, but how many people do you know who are good at it?

        Anyway, it got me thinking about devastation.  True devastation, the one thing that is incomparable to all other things.  If there is one situation from which you could forgive anything, what would it be?  Is there any kind of tragedy that excuses a lifetime of poor behavior?  Are there a few?  I can only think of one.

        I think the death of a child is the only truly devastating thing that can happen where I would excuse all future behavior.  You want to be a drunk?  Go for it.  Mean spirited and cruel?  Yeah, I get it.  But I need to clarify here a bit, because most parents think of the offspring as their child.  But for this situation I’m actually referring to a child.

        The books I recently read (John Green’s A Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska [YA fiction]) were focused on the unfortunate deaths of teenagers.  For me that doesn’t count.  The death of a teenager is epically tragic, but that’s the death of a full person.  The death of an adult child even more so.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, the death of an infant doesn’t count here either.  When you’re still translating a belch into a word, it’s not a person yet.  It’s the miraculous beginning of a person, but it’s not formed yet.

        The only truly devastating thing I can think of is the death of a child who is becoming a person.  Not only is it the death of someone who you don’t fully know yet (that happens all the time,) but it’s the death of someone who doesn’t fully know themselves yet.  At a certain point, and probably younger than we’d like to believe, we are who we are.  Our experiences will mold us, but we’re a full person.  But in that 4-10ish range, those parts of us are growing.  The evolution process during this time is astounding.   Losing your own child when you are just beginning to know who they are is the most soul ravaging thing that I can think of.

        I don’t want to make light of other kinds of tragedies, death or otherwise.  But to me, this is the only situation with a blank check on my sympathies.  I don’t expect you to be okay, and to a certain extent I don’t want you to be okay.  If you lose a friend or lover or family member, you have memories of them to fall back on.  The death of a small child only results in memories of what might of been.  It’s difficult to express how appalling I find it.