Amanda Lamb: Losing your world

As many times as I have interviewed parents who have lost a child, I still can’t wrap my head around the agony they are going through. But I try as best I can to be compassionate in what is a completely unnatural situation for both of us.

There is no way a reporter who is not a parent can truly empathize with someone in this situation, despite his or her proclivity for innate kindness. Every time I do one of these interviews, my eyes well up, and I silently imagine what I would be like if the situation were reversed. In all honesty, I don’t ever want to get comfortable with these interviews, because if I did, it would mean that I am in a dark place.

I interviewed Lesly on the day her son, Jorge, was found dead in a Northeast Raleigh park. She didn’t speak English, but a friend of the family did, so she translated for us. It wasn’t the specific content of what she said that affected me, but the way her face dissolved into grief when I asked her questions, the way her body trembled and her eyes went blank, unable to focus through the steady stream of tears.

Lesly said Jorge was her “life,” her “world,” that she had loved him fiercely since she became pregnant with him and that his loss was “an immense pain” that few could understand.

While parents who lose a child have their own individual way of expressing grief—there is one shared universal truth among them—it’s not supposed to happen.

So, I don’t want to ever interview another parent who has lost a child. I take no joy in getting or doing these interviews. But I will do them because it’s my job. And each time, I will silently pray they somehow make their way out of the darkness and find peace.

Hug your children, keep them close, tell them you love them. As parents, it’s really all we can do ...