dys· phem· is· tic Huh?

Last night I read Emerson's Journal entry the day his beloved boy slipped forever into the black abyss:

January 28, 1842
Yesterday night at 15 minutes after eight my little Waldo ended his life.

That's all. A few days later, as he tries to capture the thin ghosts of precious memory before they slip away, he calls him "...my boy, my fast receding boy..." How that phrase captures it!

Even in the 19th century -- a time not all that far removed from our own -- parents bore children in the almost certain knowledge that some of them would die before they were grown. Most people responded by making sure they had a lot of children for death to choose from. I admire their fortitude; I don't think I would have had any. Loosing Brian or Gwen is the greatest fear I have, and I am blessed enough to live at a time when the odds are they will live. Of course, it may be even harder to loose a child when you lived on the presumption they would outlive you.

As it is, the simple fact that their childhoods are almost over, that the babies and toddlers and six-year-olds I hugged so tight are "dead" -- eagerly cast aside like a cocoon as they grow -- is enough to wake me with tears at three in the morning.

"...my little ones, my fast receding little ones..."