Eric Clapton “Tears In Heaven”

I’ve had two things at the top of mind this week, the mvyradio Eric Clapton promotion, and a week’s worth of blog posts about my kids.

As part of the Clapton promotion, I was looking for a Clapton lyric to put at the top of the mvyradio webpage, and I came across “Tears In Heaven.”

And I started to think about the unthinkable: losing your child.

Terror gripped me and I realized that I had just been staring at the computer screen, for several minutes, imagining what it must be like for Clapton, who lost a young son in a most terrible, terrible accident.

Last week, an old friend of mine revealed that he and his wife are expecting. She’s actually a few months along, but they had refrained from telling anyone about the pregnancy, because they had already gone through a couple of miscarriage scares in recent weeks.

He talked about how he was going to be on edge for the rest of the pregnancy.

I’m getting ready to write him back to say: It doesn’t end when the pregnancy is over.

Becoming a parent has changed my relationship with fear and death. I am faaaaaaar more afraid of tragedy that I ever was, pre-parenthood. I am regularly gripped by the terror that held me for a moment while contemplating Clapton’s loss.

How would I possibly go on? A song is a beautiful gesture . . . but how could you go on. I hope I don’t ever have to find out.