Christine Rhyner Christine Rhyner
My grandmother and grandfather emigrated from Italy to the US in the nineteen twenties with two young girls in tow.
After giving birth to twins—a boy and girl in this country, my grandmother delivered a fifth child, a son in hospital. I remember her to be a diabetic when I was small. Perhaps due to her diabetes or some other medical or genetic circumstance, she gave birth to her second son who weighed in at a whopping sixteen pounds. The hospital proudly claimed “Will” was the largest baby to have ever been born there.
His sheer heft had him passed around quite a bit so that everyone could hold the huge newborn. A nurse is said to have lost her grip on the giant Will and dropped him onto the floor. Will did not make it. In a twisted irony, this was said to have been the first child my grandmother birthed in a hospital.
I do not know how this was justified so that there were no attorneys involved, no lawsuit, and no liability on the part of the hospital. This was approximately in the late nineteen twenties or 1930. My grandparents were struggling immigrants without a firm grasp of the language.
When the doctor came to her bedside to inform my grandmother of Will’s death, he made the following observation, perhaps in a feeble attempt to console her,
“Well, you do have four other children.”
Through the grief and her tears my grandmother responded,
“Doctor, if someone cut off one of your five fingers, wouldn’t you feel pain? Wouldn’t that lost finger be a part of you forever gone and missed?”
This came from a woman who had suffered two incredible losses that nobody should have to, but do. She was a child that lost a parent and a mother that lost a child. At the age of twelve her mother died. Perhaps she was still in her twenties when she lost Will.
Those who lose a child say there is no word in the English language to define what this is. An “orphan” has lost parents. A “widow” or “widower” has lost a spouse. Even a “divorcee’” has lost a marriage. But there is no noun in existence that explains just what a parent whose child precedes them in death is.
I think my grandmother gave the doctor the best analogy possible even in her terrible state of loss, pain and confusion. The loss of a child is a cruel, painful excising of a part of you, always noticeably absent.
When asked how many children they have, a majority of parents will include the child that has died among the number of those that live and grow into adulthood. When posting pictures to Facebook of a recent family reunion I honored my grandparents’ loss, my Uncle whom I never had the privilege to meet by including him among their descendants.
After Will, my grandmother gave birth to her sixth and last child, my father. They were very close. Perhaps she cherished him in a special way that only a mother who has lost her son before him does.
Script-Flips
Christine
8/29/2021
God's Presence With Wings
Christine
6/18/2021
The Church Needs to Unify in the Battle For Right to Life
Christine
6/10/2021
Our Sixty-Year Decline
Christine
6/1/2021
H.R. 1 Would Be A Bigger Test For The Church Than Covid Shutdowns {Part 2 of 2}
Christine
5/20/2021
H.R. 1 Would Be A Bigger Test For The Church Than Covid Shutdowns {Part 1 of 2}
Christine
5/12/2021
Dangers of Love Growing Cold
Christine
5/3/2021
Democrats' Despicable, Advantageous Use of the Elderly
Christine
4/23/2021
America, Land of Condemnation (Part Three)
Christine
4/15/2021
America, Land of Condemnation (Part Two)
Christine
4/6/2021
America, Land of Condemnation (Part One)
Christine
3/24/2021
Government's Desperate Need for Humility
Christine
3/11/2021
Is the Church Changing?
Christine
1/19/2020
What Are Our Values Anymore?
Christine
11/22/2019
The Final Frontier (Part Two)
Christine
9/4/2019
The Final Frontier (Part One)
Christine
7/29/2019
Soulmate
Christine
4/30/2019
The Colors of a Writer
Christine
12/29/2018
What's Not to Get About the Writing Life?
Christine
4/18/2018
Learning to Sing the Song of Winter
Christine
12/10/2017
Perspectives & the Second Half of the 10 Commandments of Conflict
Christine
8/25/2017
Perspectives & 5 of the 10 Commandments of Conflict
Christine
5/2/2017
Run Writer Run! Make Music with Your Words
Christine
2/15/2017
Mom, the Fishstetrician
Christine
10/14/2016
The CONSTITUTION For President
Christine
6/5/2016
The Radicalization of Hillary and the Democrat Party (PART 2 OF 2)
Christine
4/16/2016
The Radicalization of Hillary and the Democrat Party (PART 1 OF 2)
Christine
4/15/2016
Why Ted Cruz NOW?
Christine
3/19/2016
Why is the GOP Committing Suicide?
Christine
3/14/2016
Dear Chicago
Christine
3/12/2016
Does God Give Us More Than We Can Handle?
Christine
2/29/2016
That Unanswered GOP Debate Question
Christine
1/9/2016
America's Lifeline
Christine
12/31/2015
Fractured Nation (2 of 2)
Christine
11/14/2015
Fractured Nation (1 of 2)
Christine
11/11/2015
What is Orphan Sunday?
Christine
11/8/2015
November's Gratitude and Longing
Christine
11/4/2015
Losing a Child is Like...
Christine
9/12/2015
Finding God in a Tenement
Christine
9/3/2015
Doing School in the 21st Century
Christine
8/22/2015
Superstition vs. Planned Parenthood
Christine
8/19/2015
Addicted to Giving Birth?
Christine
4/21/2015
Why We Should Have "The Talk" Before Marriage
Christine
3/20/2015
Adoptive Parents "Hypersensitive" & "Selfish?"
Christine
3/12/2015
What's So Wrong With Calling It "Gotcha Day!"
Christine
2/26/2015
How God Connected the Dots
Christine
2/7/2015
Exposure of Transracially Adopted Kids to Their Races a Bad Thing?
Christine
2/2/2015
Out With The Old
Christine
1/12/2015
Those Who Scoff at International Adoption
Christine
8/16/2014
Setting Aside Birth Story Facts for Truth
Christine
7/31/2014
Sneak Peak, "How much did you pay for her?"
Christine
6/11/2014
Blessing Through Adoption Pain
Christine
5/16/2014
Eight Ways Publishing Your Book is Like an Adoption Journey
Christine
2/23/2014
Neglected Ministries?
Christine
2/17/2014
It's a Boy
Christine
2/8/2014
Thoughts of Her
Christine
2/1/2014
To My Son
Christine
1/30/2014
Rational Thinking?
Christine
1/25/2014
Minority Against Minority
Christine
1/12/2014
Happy New Year!
Christine
12/30/2013
Happy Thanksgiving
Christine
11/25/2013
You ARE my mother?
Christine
11/10/2013
The Transracially Adopted Children's Bill of Rights and Some Thoughts
Christine
11/3/2013
Infertility Is...
Christine
10/19/2013
Will He Speak English?
Christine
10/11/2013
Kitty-Sam
Christine
10/5/2013
What's in a Name?
Vhristine
9/30/2013
An Adoptive Mom's Message to Those in the Healthcare and Education Professions
Christine
9/25/2013
Being Tested
Christine
9/11/2013
When We Are Weary
Christine
9/1/2013
Trailblazers
Chrisrine
8/24/2013
A Fresh Start
Christine
8/22/2013
God Works Behind the Scenes
Christine
8/13/2013
Why Adoption Requires Forgiveness
Christine
7/28/2013
Dust Bunnies and Poo
Christine
7/19/2013
Reality Check
Christine
7/13/2013
Forgiveness is Work
Christine
7/9/2013
An Answer to Prayer, Part Three
Christine
7/3/2013
An Answer to Prayer, Part Two
Christine
6/27/2013
An Answer to Prayer, Part One
Christine
6/22/2013
Are They Really Brother and Sister?
Christine
6/16/2013
Infertility's Not Fair
Christine
6/13/2013
Has He Ever Eaten a Dog?
Christine
6/11/2013
Sometimes We Fail
Christine
6/9/2013
