Sunday, May 8, 2005

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Last Saturday, we lost a relative… a 7-month old boy, my nephew Zhed.
Zhed died in his sleep, he just didn’t wake up. He was healthy and happy when he went to sleep Friday night, the following day, he’s dead. Just like that…so peaceful and so sudden.
Yesterday, while I looked at him in his tiny coffin, I couldn’t feel a thing. I wanted to cry but tears won’t flow, I wanted to say something encouraging to my cousin and her husband but words won’t come out. I wanted to feel something but I can’t. I was so numb and I can’t explain it. the whole time my mother and I were there I didn’t say a word about the child.
When we got home and to this moment I can’t stop thinking about Zhed. I lost my first child six years ago and somehow the death of Zhed feels like the death of my first child all over again. Old wounds are starting to feel like new again. Their loss feels like mine. Only, the baby I lost had no face, I never held her and I never touched her. We had no closure, I haven’t said my goodbyes to her yet and I don’t think I can, part of me was buried with her when she died.