Reply #9: Your first thought is "I'm so glad my child is safe." [View All]

[davsand]

There is a split second there where you are immensely relieved and grateful that your kid is safe and you are not facing it in any more immediate capacity. Then there is a growing realization that another family is facing it and how terrible it must be. THEN you cry.

Last night we went to a bulk mailing party (fund raising) for the Dem party in the county just next door to us. We do a fair amount of stuff over there because we share some elected representatives. My daughter doesn't really know many people there (unlike the Dem party stuff here at home where she's grown up with them.)

She was sitting there helping with the mailing (in our family, bulk mail is a game everyone can play and if there's pizza involved it is a very easy sell job.) She was working and talking to the Chair of the Dem party for that county. She told him about Brandon's death, and he told her he'd seen it in the newspapers and that he was sad to hear it.

He then told her all about how his wife died in an accident four years ago and how sad he'd been about it. He went on to tell her that you never stop being sad about it but that after a while you are sad less often.

I know this man. He's a great guy--but he's also one of the toughest politicos I've met in a long time. I've seen him in action, and I know several elected people that are scared to death of this guy. Tough as he is, he was willing to sit and talk to my kid about grief and loss. This man can (and does) yell at Senators, and my kid hugged him when we left because he had been so kind to her.

THIS is the kind of help and caring that we've seen in the aftermath of Brandon's death. It is simply amazing.

Brandon's time was short, but his impact was huge-he was a very real blessing to many people.

BB.


Laura