February 2010

Posted 2/8/10. Many people do not know that Jennifer and I had a baby, Leah, who died. She was born Monday, November 25, 1996, and died Friday, November 29, 1996, after five days of living only in a hospital. This is a picture of her in the last hour of her life; she had breathing problems she could not overcome.

One of the reasons that many people do not know about Leah is that I do not tell them about her. Privately, among our family and close friends, we of course speak of her and remember her. Every November around her birthday, a time of year that is particularly hard for her mother, we recognize her life by lighting a candle or hiking, as a family, up to the hill where we scattered her ashes. We talk about her freely with our sons, who never met her and will never understand the impact she has had on their lives.

Among people I do not know, however, talking about Leah represents an awkward challenge. Whenever a new book of mine comes out, the publisher releases biographical material about me that typically mentions the fact that I have children. I often speak publicly in front of groups, and occasionally do radio and TV interviews. These, too, generally mention my children, at least in passing, and this is where the awkwardness comes in. Do I say I have four children, or three?

This issue arose again last month when I was putting the finishing touches on the second edition of The Everything Father To Be Book, A Survival Guide for Men, which will be released this year. In my acknowledgments for the book, I thanked only three of my children by name, leaving out Leah. There was a reason for this. When you are having a baby, understandably, the last thing you want to hear is that something bad can happen to your child. I have written three parenting books, and after Leah died I had a spirited discussion with an editor (not my current one) about how much I should talk about her death when writing for expectant mothers and fathers.

"When you talk about that," she said (and she was a mother herself, and not unsympathetic to my concerns), "it puts the book in another category. It's no longer a parenting guide, it's a book about loss and recovery from loss." Indeed. As this blog post shows, as soon as I start talking about Leah the discussion becomes somber and the audience falls silent.

So, in my writing (especially for new parents) and my public speaking, I have generally avoided the subject, sticking with the public fiction of three children rather than the personal truth of four. Until the other day when I was watching TV. A man came on who was being interviewed on some issue or another. I can't recall his name, what program he was on, or the issue he was talking about. What I remember is that he said he was the father of two children, one of whom had died. "An angel," he called her. His eyes became teary. The host changed the topic, and they went on to discuss whatever it was they were supposed to talk about.

I was struck by this man's courage to be open about a hidden hurt. Following his lead, I decided to change my approach. I rewrote the acknowledgments to The Everything Father To Be Book, dedicating the book to all my children and mentioning them all by name. Is a child who is gone still your child? She is, and always will be. I have four children, and their names are Annie, Hank, Gabe and Leah.

Annie, who is now in college, with her sister

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