There must be tens of thousands of stories like this one from Charles Lane of The Washington Post about his child who died in utero just hours before a scheduled c-section:
We, like the Santorums, took a photograph of the baby — lying, as if asleep, in my wife’s arms. We have a framed copy in our bedroom. It’s beautiful.Jonathan’s body was prepared according to Jewish law, including circumcision, and buried after a religious service. Clergy and friends gathered at our home to support us.I regret that, unlike the Santorums, who presented the body of their child to their children, we did not show Jonathan’s body to our other son, who was six years old at the time. When I told him what had happened, his first question was, “Well, where is the baby?” I tried to explain what a morgue is, and why the baby went there. It was awkward and unsatisfactory — too abstract. In hindsight, I was not protecting my son from a difficult conversation, I was protecting myself.
Related: Eugene Robinson clarifies criticism of Santorum, Now Eugene Robinson mocks Santorum’s mourning, Alan Colmes mocks how Rick Santorum mourned dead child.
Update: From Jessica Heslam in The Boston Herald (h/t @jpodhoretz):
As for my daughter Grace, the doctors don’t know how she died, although it was likely an umbilical cord accident.As Santorum did for his son, we had a funeral for Grace. She’s buried alongside her grandmother and her obituary ran in this newspaper.And like Santorum, not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. My 12-year-old stepdaughter, meanwhile, wears a remembrance bracelet to honor the baby sister she never knew.
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