Is there anything more unbearable than this?

[Phil]

You may remember that earlier this year a friend of mine lost her son, who succumbed to complications of his heart troubles. She is doing a bit better and is keeping her infant daughter very close to her. I think she is a survivor and will, eventually, find a way to make peace with what happened.

But today...

One of my neighbors has four children. The twins (one boy, one girl) are eight years old, their other son is a couple of years younger, and the baby girl is now three. Yesterday the dad was prepping for a weekend of bow hunting, and somehow ended up putting a bolt into the back of his eight year old son's head.

The boy was life-flighted to Salt Lake City and seemed to be recovering, but died this morning.

How can a parent EVER get past that experience and find peace in their life?

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Oh boy. If there is, I don't know what it is. Hard to imagine anything worse.

[RandomAnthony]

Holy fuck. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine.

[ms.petra]

Phil, you are correct in using the word unbearable. That poor father will carry that with him for the rest of his life. I hope he has a strong marriage because it will be a strain there as well.

[Heidi]

:( That's unbelievably sad.

[Brittomart]

Oh my God...

[[deleted user]]

That would be the toughest of things to ever accept. Absolutely tragic.

[[deleted user]]

Wow. I can't, nor do I want to, imagine losing a child, especially in such a cruelly accidental fashion.

[Carol]

I'm so sorry. What a terrible tragedy. For the father, the twin, oh I can't even imagine.

[Sarah]

Unbearable.

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

Dear God, that's awful, Phil.
No, you don't get over that, you just live with it.

[Cynthia]

OH Phil. This really is unbearable.

My unbearable story for today concerns a family from Muscatine, Iowa. Their 19-year-old son received a 17-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting an 18-month old boy. The family is prominent in town and I don't know how they are going to go on holding their heads up. It's not that big of a town. Sucks for everyone involved, especially the baby.

[Mona]

Sexually assaulting an 18-month old baby?! Sexual assault is bad enough but a defenseless baby--that's heinous. I would expect that the family would be ostracized as if they themselves committed the crime.

Another unbearable story. A father accidentally backed his car over his toddler daughter(3 yrs-old?) who was hiding under a pile of raked leaves.

My question is: what is the kid doing outside unsupervised?

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Aaargghhh.

If you want to get more depressed, read about all the stories of parents who forgot their kid was in the car (like, they forgot to drop the kid off at day care), drove to work, worked all day, and the kid died of heatstroke. This happens shockingly more often than you would think.

But these stories can help other parents. Maybe they can develop a permanent mental checklist (check behind car, check in backseat, call spouse when kid delivered to daycare, etc.). Anyone can get distracted and tragedies can happen.