My Morning
Posted on March 12, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 58 Comments
Will be spent taking my daughter to the funeral of a friend and classmate of hers. I very sincerely hope your morning is going to be better than mine is about to be. I also very sincerely hope at some point in your day you let the people you love know just how much you love them. It’s important.
See you all a bit later. Play nice until I get back. Thanks.
Give Athena a big hug from me. The death of a friend who is your own age is tough to take. I am so sorry she is having this experience so early in her life.
Luckily, Athena has great parents.
Deepest sympathy to you and yours. Good luck steering through it all.
Many of us will be thinking of you, yours and the family effected. We’ll still be here when you get back – take care until then.
Many of us will even be behaving ourselves.
Hugs to Athena.
And to you, John. Just because.
Our love to you and Athena. Very sorry for the classmate’s family’s loss. Be well.
We will keep their family and yours in our prayers.
This too shall pass. Hope the day helps to bring some kind of closure to such a difficult event.
I often say to friends and co-workers who are about to have their first child and ask what to expect: “You are about to embark on the most difficult and rewarding job you will ever have. Good Luck.”
Today is undoubtedly one of the hard parts…but you’re a good Dad and you’ll help her through it. And we’ve all got your back here to help you through, along with all your friends and family. Our thoughts are with you.
Yeah, about 90% of world’s morning is going to be better than yours.
Good luck.
Sorry, man. That utterly sucks – your family and the Moyers are in my thoughts.
Another big hug across the miles to your family. My thoughts will be with you all this morning.
That’s so hard. My thoughts are with you both.
There are few things for any of us as difficult as coping with the death of a family member or friend, and so much more so when you are a child. My prayers and thoughts are with you, Krissy and Athena, as well as with the Moyers.
Having had the sad, sad duty of taking my son (now only 8) to the funerals of two friends in the last two years, I understand what you feel as a parent today. My thoughts are with you and the Moyer’s in their grief.
P.S. Milkshakes help after.
No parent should ever have to outlive a child, and no child should ever have to bury a friend.
Our thoughts are with you, Athena, and the family of that poor little girl.
Take care, man. My condolences to the family, and best wishes to Athena for coping with this.
I hope your daughter works through this all right. I can’t even imagine trying to help my daughter through something similar, much less being in the parents’ shoes.
My condolences to everyone, it is not something children should have to go through at such an early age.
Not a fun day of parenting, but certainly an important and necessary day. I think my daughter is about Athena’s age, and I couldn’t even imagine having to take her to the funeral of a friend. My thoughts are with all the families involved.
My wife and I lost a child last year. A grief councilor gave us a piece of really helpful advice. The goal of grieving for a loss like this is not to, “get over it”, but to acclimate to it. This is not a loss goes away over time; it’s more like lose an arm or a leg. It becomes part of you for the rest of your life. For me, understanding that helped.
Bonne courage, John, and love to Athena.
My thoughts will be with you, Athena, and especially the family of Tiffany Moyer today. Take care.
I just went through this last year with my own 11 year old daughter’s friend. And even though it might not even have occurred to you, I’m going to give you the answer to the question I was too afraid to ask: No, it’s not wrong to be relieved you’re not the parents of dead child.
Good luck, and my sympathies.
Rituals help us make sense of what is going on within and without. I hope Tiffany’s funeral helps Athena and all her friends reach some sort of equilibrium from which to go on.
The saddest funeral I’ve ever been to was the one for a friend’s brother, who committed suicide at 14. The officiant castigated the distraught parents for their divorce, their family discord and their generally un-Christian ways. It was awful. My mother and two other mothers-of-friends went back after the family had left and cut that pastor an entirely new digestive system, back to front.
I went to a catholic funeral for an infant that had dies at 3 months. The priest began the service with, “Well folks, it does not get any more difficult than this.” He then gave a sermon that validated everybody’s grief. I thought it was very appropriate. Nobody wants hear about something being God’s will, or part of God’s plan at a moment like that.
My thoughts are with Athena and the family of the young girl. I was just about that age when a little girl in my scout troop was hit and killed by a car. Even all these years later I’m glad I was able to attend her service. Strength to you and your wife while you are there for her. It’s such a hard thing to go through at any age.
Lauren #23: Good on your mom!
It sucks to have to do that, but I’m glad to see folks step up. Gives one hope in sad times.
May hope be found today amid the necessary tears.
I’m so sorry. One of the hardest things I’ve done as a parent is helping my kids deal with the deaths of their friends — suicide by one of both of my sons’ friends and sudden cardiac failure in a sister of my daughter’s classmate. Life just sucks sometime. Hugs and love help.
I have jury duty. Deliberation starts today. I was stupid enough to become foreman.
Condolences to Athena, her classmates, and the Moyer family.
More sympathy from an internet stranger. At least she has a father who understands.
Take care.
That’s rough, for life changing values of “rough” (to steal an expression for Charlie Stross), but at least you’re able to go with her. I imagine there are kids there with parents who couldn’t afford to take a day off of work.
The classmates you lose, even if you’re not closed to them, you never forget, even after you’ve forgotten many of the living ones later in life.
Condolences.
Sending lots of supportive thoughts to you all.
A very difficult thing for Athena to have to deal with at 10 years old. But with you and Krissy there, I have confidence that she’ll get through this OK.
Peace to all, especially Tiffany’s family.
Adam @28: Not sure if your point is that jury duty is somehow equivalent to attending an 11-year-old’s funeral. Unless your trial involves the death of a child (and I say this because I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon looking at pictures of a murdered six-month-old) being the foreman of a jury isn’t even in the same moral universe as what the Scalzi family is doing today. See, e.g., Johnny @19.
That truly sucks. Just know by showing up you’re doing the most you can to support her family, short of making it all not true.
I’m so sorry. I lost several friends during high school and that was more brutal than I can say.
Athena is very lucky to have you both for parents. You’re all in my thoughts.
It is one of those events that is likely to stay with your daughter. I am 47 and I still remember well Theresa who died when I was in 4th grade.
Wish I could say I have no idea how your daughter must feel. Can’t, though.
<3 to you both.
Again, I’m just so sorry. For the family and friends of the young girl who died and for Athena and you. It’s just hard and so damn unfair. Take care, give Athena hugs from all of us.
Condolences, and sympathy, and hugs, to all of those touched by this loss. {{Johnny}}, too.
My condolences to all – parents, students, Athena.
Courage and condolences from yet another invisible internet-er. Losing a friend–ever–is awful. Losing one while still at the early bloom of youth is nigh unfathomable.
My heart goes out to you all.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the sea; they live in one another still. – William Penn
Condolences and prayers to you all.
*hugs*
Sometimes there are no words.
My thoughts are with you and especially Athena. Death is hard enough when you are able to steel yourself in advance.
My condolences to all involved.
A bunch of middle school kids here in Fresno will be going through the same thing tomorrow, at the funeral of a classmate of theirs who was killed in an accident last week. My best friend was one of the dead boy’s teachers, so I’ve heard a little bit about how rough it has been for those kids.
At least these days, schools handle these things with some sensitivity. When I was in junior high, a classmate died. Everyone on the staff and faculty basically acted like nothing had happened. And then, at the end of the year, they chose to take the graduating class trip to the beach where it had happened. When kids got upset, the school officials acted like they just couldn’t understand why anyone would be disturbed by it.
Condolences.
John,
I’m sure you’re doing everything you can for Athena, even if it’s hard for you. If the support of the internet is of any assistance in this, know that you have it.
As someone who watched all her whole 8th grade classmates (all 3 homerooms) + her younger brother’s 3rd grade homeroom come to her dad’s funeral – the gesture of coming out and BEING there says more than words.
‘I’m sorry’ seems so very inadequate.
But man, they got their parents to bring them despite the
2 hr snow delay. THAT I will remember to the day I join Dad.
I’ll be thinking of y’all…
I suspect that anything I say at this point would probably infuriate about 65% of the people who might read it.
oh goodness. Prayers for all. I am so sorry for the loss of her friend.
Oh, goodness. condolences and prayers, as per watercolor.
My prayers are offered wholeheartedly. This is so remarkably awful.
Totally offtopic @28: I’m a lawyer and being a juror is damnably important. Ask yourself how you would like a juror to behave if you were at trial, and you are most of the way home.
I hope everything went well; as well as can be, at least.
The only time we had of that in my school was someone who died of leukaemia 4 months from graduation; I was in grade 9. One day, in our English class, we discussed poetry somewhat different from what we were working on, but interesting, nonetheless. And, for some reason, it made more sense than the Browning we had been working on.
It was hers, of course.
The poetry writing contest held at the school was renamed for her as well – and three years later, one of my classmates convinced me to enter two of mine. I took second place. I do think it was her (both hers) who helped, as the poetry I’ve written for the rest of my life has been truly horrible.
I appreciate the work the school, and the teacher, did – it’s important to force yourself to remember the life as well, later on; otherwise all your memory sees is a big hole at the end.
My sympathies to Athena’s family and that of her other classmates; and especially to those in Tiffany’s life who have to carry on with a space in their house, or their birthday gatherings, or their grandchildren pictures, or…
From the story you linked to, there’s an investigation – “we won’t find anything, but it’s routine in these cases”. Seriously, I pray for strength for the family to deal with that and for it to be over soon (if not already).
I had to do the same recently for my son. On his birthday. Death is hard for kids; it is also hard for parents. Warm thoughts!
Mr. Scalzi,
I’m sure sorry to hear about your daughter’s friend sir. I know what it’s like to lose a good friend. She has my sympathy and is in my prayers. I hope that the rest of ya’lls day goes better.
Sincerely,
Sam
i hope Athena is ok with that sad thing in her life i feal SO bad for her my sympathy is with her.