Being a parent can sometimes be heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking and painful. Tuesday a fellow blogger and woman whom I admired for her writing and fearless parenting announced the death of her beloved first born child, Henry. Katie Allison Granju had only recently bravely shared the struggles she and her family were going through dealing with Henry’s addiction and the life threatening injuries he had as result of a activities related to his addiction. I found her writing to be very brave.

Mommy-blogging is supposed to be all hearts and flowers and beautiful photographs of beautiful, happy, well-behaved children. We aren’t supposed to share about struggles with the dark side of raising children, particularly adolescents. We should not write about kids running away from home or drinking alcohol or experimenting with drugs or engaging in a multitude of other risky, life-threatening activities. No one wants to hear about families with young, pregnant daughters, nor do they want to read about putting kids in rehab facilities. Mommy bloggers don’t have struggles like those and if they do they should be shrouded from the readers’ view.

But Katie took a stand and decided to reveal that which her family and her son had been struggling with for what turned out to be a very long time. The response was overwhelming as many, myself included, followed Henry’s slow but fingers-crossed promising recovery. We took to heart that which Katie shared about all the wouldas, couldas and shouldas that she and her family regretted. Even the most loving and seemingly perfect of families has struggles with things like this. Katie’s family was no different than any other family…no different than my own family. I loathed to write about much of our family’s struggles, worries and fears while we survived the raising of our first teenaged child. I think of what Katie dealt with raising her Henry and I find myself asking how did we get so lucky with our child? True, we were not dealing with addiction but our child’s anger, our child’s hell-bent determination to make the most dangerous of choices in activities and friends scared the hell out of us. There were days I will confess where I just was certain that there would be a phone call, a knock on the door and I knew we certainly would not survive. There were so many days where we stressed and worried, prayed and cried, yelled and screamed. Deep down she remained our beautiful, perfect child; just like Katie’s Henry. But some days we were afraid, so very afraid. Fast forward more than five years later and I look at our beautiful child, now a responsible adult, now a young mother and I feel nothing but gratitude for our good fortune. Years ago an older friend promised me that she would come back to us and we all would somehow survive. My friend was right for us…how I wish the same could be said for Katie and her beloved, beautiful Henry.

To Katie and the rest of Henry’s family I offer my most sincere condolences and prayers.

Henry Louis Granju 1991-2010 Beloved, beautiful child