What is it that we really want to do in this world? I think that many of us feel that it is to leave our mark on the future, in some way or another. I didn't used to care about anything but the present, but then I finally grew up. Once I dated a woman who had children, and it didn't work out. I decided that from then on I would only be interested in women without children, or I would never be "number one" in her life. So what happened? Yeah, I fell in love with a woman who had two kids. And I married her. Suddenly, I was a parent. Kind of, they were HER kids, and I was helping her raise them. (And believe me, they didn't make it easy.)
So, what happens? Yeah, you guessed it - I actually came to love them as if they had been my biological children, too. But that was my stumbling block - again, they weren't "my" kids. As I got older I started feeling like I was leaving nothing to the future. One reason I got into doing stained glass - any piece I do has a reasonable chance of still being around somewhere in hundreds of years. So, I was able to leave "something" to the future, but it wasn't really satisfying in that respect. (I still love doing the work, though - it's fun!)
But a funny thing happened to me, as the kids became adults. They never let me forget what an important part of their lives I was, how much I meant to them, and I came to realize - I HAD "my" kids all along, I was just too dumb to see it. So for the past several years, I no longer feel that I'm leaving nothing to the future - I leave two wonderful human beings that carry in them that part of me which makes me what I am. Not my genes, but my values. I had my investment in the future returned to me in full. And more.
And then, completely unexpectedly, I had half of that future taken away from me. My son, who I struggled with for those many years, was gone. I've lost part of the future.
Your kids are your investment in the future. It may be cliche, but I've come to realize cliches get to be cliche because there's truth behind them. I finally had a future even after I was gone from this world, and I've lost half of that. (Daughter, you'd better outlive me. Us. Both your mom and I would be totally lost without you.)
Perhaps that's what makes the loss of a child "the most devastating loss of all." Your children are the future of the world, you want to be part of that through them, this is such a primal need in all of us that it's the driving force behind almost everything we do. Eating? Of course, you need energy to raise kids. Breathe? C'mon. Sex? How else do you have kids? "Investing in the future" is what we do. And when we are secure in that we've raised our kids to be the best human beings they can, we can finally relax that primal need. We've done it. We did our jobs as human beings. And then you lose that. Instantly.
Lose your parents? You knew they were going to go before you.
Lose your siblings? Well, you guys did grow apart as you grew older.
Lose your spouse? Well, you can always find another.
Lose your child? Well, uh, er, you've lost your future.
They say those who've lost a child can only really empathize with others who've lost children, but I can't even imagine what it's like to lose your ONLY child. (The line, "well, you've got another one" is cruel, but there's a grain of truth to it - you still have an investment in the future. Not true if you've lost your only child - and worse if you're too old to have another.)
And now I'm rambling again. I'll try to summarize. I postulate that our most primal urge is to influence the future, we do that through our children. And that's why the loss of a child is more devastating than any other loss. Losing a child is like losing the future, and short-circuiting that primal drive.
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