We Knew Our Child Was Dying

Abstract

When the tragedy of a child's death is about to strike a family, social talk and false cheer compound the parents' anguish. The undertaker had no casket to fit our little boy. He would send to the city for the right size. don't get many children this age, he told us. Quite a few newborns, and older children from traffic accidents, but it's five years since we buried an eight-year-old child. My husband and I, still frozen in shock, reflected on the irony of his statement. As a new mother, I had tended to be a worrier-most nurses are, I think. We see so many results of disease and neglect and carelessness that we resolve not to let our children be harmed, if it lies within our power to prevent it. But rearing five children, and watching them survive the inevitable illnesses, injuries, and broken bones, made me a more philosophical and relaxed parent. I forgot how terribly vulnerable a child can be. Our son John was a bright, happy child, usually engrossed with his friends in a project involving much planning, gathering of equipment, and hammering, but equally contented alone with his trucks and trains or dreaming over a book. He had a sweet, cheerful disposition, and his only somber moments came when he had nothing to do! So when he came down with mumps two weeks before Christmas, but wasn't feverish or ill, our main concern was helping him find ways to keep busy while he was housebound. He wrote Christmas cards to his friends, kept up-to-date by phone on happenings at school, and helped put up holiday decorations. But one morning he woke up vomiting and complaining that his stomach hurt. My books indicated that both pancreatitis and central nervous involvement could cause nausea and vomiting with mumps, but neither seemed to be considered a grave complication. However, the vomiting didn't stop, and John looked so pale and ill that, when we