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LIFE | DEATH | CHILDHOOD

My Friend is Dying And it’s Her Young Daughter I am Most Devastated For

The thought of a child losing their mother cuts me up beyond belief

Sally Prag

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Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash

I can’t say when this feeling of desperate sadness for children who lose their mothers young took a hold of me first but it’s one of the things that can make me break down just thinking about.

I remember recently reading a piece in which the author mentioned that his mother tragically died when he was seven, and I was left with that overriding feeling of sadness, knowing that he had suffered this loss so young. It’s a feeling of awful, cruel injustice that I can never seem to resolve.

It may have started when I shocked myself with thoughts of my own death when my youngest was only around six months. I was feeling desperately unhappy and utterly trapped in my relationship with his father, with nowhere to escape to. Every day, when I had time to myself, I could barely enjoy it for the anxiety I would feel, knowing that something…anything…could set him off when he returned from work. And me feeling this way wasn’t helping.

I’d tried leaving, even sleeping in my car when I was heavily pregnant, yet could never quite escape. Somehow I always went back and stayed, feeling…

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Sally Prag
Sally Prag

Written by Sally Prag

I write creative nonfiction essays and poetry. Rethinking life through my words. Sometimes too seriously, sometimes not seriously enough.

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