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Saturday
Sep202008
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I'm heart tender today.
My dear friend Laura lost her son yesterday, a beautiful 12-year-old boy named Christoph. He lived a joyful life, thanks most especially to the love and comfort-giving of his parents.
I remember sitting with Laura on the Mall in Washington DC. Our mock trial team had won state in the spring of our high school senior year and we were there to compete in nationals. We were planning our fabulous lives, where we would be cosmopolitan women and change the world. With marriage and children somehow tucked in there, but later.
A few years later we were both married and pregnant, I with my second daughter and she with her first son. She had married her dashing German sweetheart and they were living in the beautiful town of Konstanz, right near a lake nestled up against Switzerland. She was living that cosmopolitan life: working as an editor in Germany and, as I remember, competing on a water-skiing team (Laura is spunky like that. For as long as I can remember, Laura has been my ideal of an enthusiastic, optimistic life lover. I wanted to be just like her.)
Christoph was born with multiple and profound disabilities. G and I visited them in Konstanz a few years later and I remember we were inspired by their positive and joyful approach to life with Christoph. Dirk had constructed special hanging swings in the living room and rebuilt their minivan to be a traveling crib for him (the first of countless projects he undertook for Christoph's comfort). They loved taking him on adventures, tickling his back, laying him in the grass on their backyard. Life continued, it was just different. They wholeheartedly embraced being Christoph's parents.
They eventually moved to the States, near Laura's family, and had three more children. Each time I visit I go away filled with inspiration and appreciation for the quality of their lives. It hasn't been easy + they have had more than their share of challenges. (Sometimes I go away just pleading that they will not. have. any. more. challenges.) But their life seemed distilled to the essence of what really matters: the back tickling, swinging in the back swing, singing, giggling with each other, loving. He had manymanymany hospitalizations and seizures and surgeries but he was constantly cloaked in a blanket of love and hope.
Today when Laura emailed the news, she said "We are devastated but we know he is finally free." I guess I just wanted to give tribute to Laura today for being the kind of mother she is. I don't think there was a moment in Christoph's life when he didn't feel loved. That is extraordinary to me.
I still want to be just like Laura.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Reader Comments (11)
I am so sorry...I am going to hug my kiddos extra tight tonight.
I am wordless. Lots of love to Christoph's family. I want to be like Laura too.
They sound like a beautiful family. How very sad and comforting for them and you, their dear friend, all at the same time.
What a beautiful tribute to your friend and her sweet boy.
i feel just like liz. it makes you want to try harder to look past the things that drive you crazy and hold onto the things that really matter.
Beautiful post Annie. Thanks for putting life in perspective. Just received word tonight too that a friend of mine lost her brother-in-law in a car accident. His wife is pregnant with their first child. These things are hard but I suppose in some twisted way they make the meaningful things in life more meaningful.
Why does it sometimes take a tragic experience to make us wake up to the wonderfulness in our lives? Thanks for the reminder. I'm so sorry for Laura and her family.
Such a sweet love letter, Annie!
I am so sorry to hear about Christoph. I can't imagine what your friend and her family are going through. I lost my father in March and was I devastated, but to lose a child, I can't start to imagine.
Your friend and her family are in my prayers.
Lindsay
P.S. Looking forward to the postcards.
tears...motherhood has a profound connection among all of us. bless her.
So beautiful, Annie. And amen to all of your lovely words.