Oh my God! I actually felt my stomach lurch when I read this: ""Look, there are no guarantees with anything. It's understandable, when something terrible happens, to try to make it someone else's fault, so you can hate them, but sometimes shit just happens"
I am sorry if repeating it upsets you Sassy...
I don't think that there is any excuse for being like this just because some of us have never lost a child and can't understand.. of course we can't understand, you know? But that is NO EXCUSE.
I have never lost a child and you know, the posts of those of you who have sometimes scare the fucking SHIT out of me. You all know there are no words for it in a way that I can't explain: "nightmare" is a paltry and inadequate word for your anguish.
Sassy, your case in particular frightens me beyond anything I have ever come across on line. Because your Catherine's death was just so, oh, so indescribably almost ridiculous. What a crap word, can't think of another though.. No one is supposed to have a healthy child die of a common childhood illness, it just doesn't happen... but of course, it does and it happened to you and it is so unfair that it should have taken your Catherine and be so minor for others. Or you Shabba, to have lost two sons.. and in the different ways that you did..
Your stories are like a wake up call to any of us who think that we can insulate ourselves from death. I could be a bitch to you or be empathetic with you, I could be a watchful mother or a neglectful one, I could wrap my child in cotton wool or let him run amok.. and no choice that I make will protect me from walking in your shoes.
So people just go silent or harden themselves to it.. but that is so WRONG!
It is no excuse to be hard. Or harsh. People need to face up to their fears here and separate those from their treatment of real bloody human beings who are suffering. Each and every one of us could be a mother who loses a child and we will be so every day for the rest of our lives. The risk never goes away, you can't make it go away by being an utter cow: it wouldn't be "better" if a child died at 0 or at 10 or at 34 or at 67 and it most certainly wouldn't be "shit happens".
I am so, so sorry for each and every loss of a child that has been mentioned on this thread. I lit a candle at York Minster today at the St. Nicholas' chapel for all of you. I wish it didn't have to be so, I wish you could all have this taken away from you.. but at the very bloody least, I wish that people wouldn't be cocks out of fear in such a heartless, thoughtless way.