The Gift of Children

At the end of John Gunther’s classic 1949 book, Death Be Not Proud, about the death of his 17-year-old son Johnny from a brain tumor, Johnny’s mom offered a few pages of her thoughts regarding her son’s death. Her words hit me hard as they remind me that my children are a gift from God. She writes, “Today, when I see parents impatient or tired or bored with their children, I wish I could say to them, But they are alive, think of the wonder of that! They may be a care and a burden, but think, they are alive! You can touch them – what a miracle! You don’t have to hold back sudden tears when you see just a headline about the Yale-Harvard game because you know your boy will never see the Yale-Harvard game, never see the house in Paris he was born in, never bring home his girl, and you will not hand down your jewels to his bride and will have no grandchildren to play with and spoil. Your sons and daughters are alive. Think of that- not dead but alive! Exult and sing.”