Reflections On The Death Of A Child

May 29, 2002, was another one of those cold, damp, spring days in Northern Michigan. Overcast, rainy, cool. Nothing out of the ordinary except for one factor. That was the day our 19-year-old son, Jonathan, died. What do you do when your child dies? How do you respond? They don't prepare you for this when you receive premarital counseling. The prenatal classes don't prepare you. How do you handle it? I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but I'd just like to discuss this issue for a few minutes because it's real life. Children die. Maybe they die as infants. Or at 1 year old, 2 years old, 10 years old, 20 years old or 40 or 50 or 19. As a parent, what do you do?