This is deeply moving. I have 3 kids. One is adopted, but he is no different from the others. If anything happened to any of them, I sincerely can't imagine h

This is deeply moving. I have 3 kids. One is adopted, but he is no different from the others. If anything happened to any of them, I sincerely can't imagine how I'd carry on. I know I would, but I don't know what it would look like. I can't imagine that world because I so badly don't want it. Sometimes I force myself to imagine myself getting a terminal illness or injury, and think of how I'd handle that, how I need to live as though that could happen at any moment, and how important it is that I do that for my family. That's not so difficult. But when I come to the sort of mental simulation of my kids dying, I'm made sorely aware of how unprepared I'll be. As you can't easily prepare for their arrival, I don't think you can prepare for their departure. Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations something like "When you kiss your child, whisper to yourself: 'Tomorrow you may be dead.'", which sounds extremely morbid, but (especially in his time) is something we unfortunately do need to consider and contemplate. Not only for ourselves, but our entire families. Someone needs to be able to guide the family through that, somehow. I don't know how Eric met that challenge, but evidently he has (and continues to) and I admire anyone who does. That's an extremely hard path to be pushed down. To share pieces of that with other people is tremendously vulnerable and, in a sense, generous. I appreciate it.