Without disputing the immense tragedy of the deaths of children, in Connecticut or anywhere--for infants and children die unspeakably every day, often of easily preventable diseases-- there is also the solace of the life they had. I thought especially of these words by playwright Tom Stoppard.
In Stoppard's play Shipwrecked, the middle play of his Coast of Utopia trilogy, Alexander Herzen has just suffered the sudden death of his young son. Michael Bakunin attempts to comfort his by saying, "Little Kolya, his life cut so short! Who is this Moloch...?" Herzen replies:
"No, no, not at all! His life was what it was. Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don’t value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it’s been sung? The dance when it’s been danced?... Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question."
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