Giving birth to grief

Essay: Like a mother's pangs, the death of a child brings painful contractions and release | Jack Rehill

Photo courtesy of the Rehill family

Never did we think we'd receive the phone call we received at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 1998, our youngest son's 21st birthday, from a Boston-area hospital.

Our oldest son, Jeff, was a second-year law student at Boston University and had decided to take a relaxing bike ride after a full day of classes before hitting the books again that night.

The neurosurgeon on the phone told us Jeff had somehow flipped over the handlebars of the bicycle and had suffered severe blunt head trauma. He was unconscious and needed immediate surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain and to stop the bleeding.

We gave our consent. I asked the doctor his prognosis. He said, "We'll do the surgery and he should be fine." My wife and I quickly packed. Together with our 15-year-old daughter, the youngest of our four children, we headed for Boston, a five-hour drive from our home in northeastern Pennsylvania. We contacted our other two sons and made arrangements for them to come to the hospital.