When We Were Very Young

I remember a book with this title on my childhood bookcase, written (I think) by Milne, the man who wrote the Winnie the Pooh series. I think it was a book of poems, but I'm not sure. I thought about it tonight as I thought about my own children when they were small. The best and the worst thing about having children is watching them grow up, the best because they become (ideally) well-adjusted adults, the worst because those little people who used to rely on you -- entirely at certain points in their lives -- don't anymore. Can anything be more bittersweet than that? Of course the answer is yes: losing your children before they grow up, having children who never grow up or always rely on you for whatever reason a few examples that come immediately to mind.

My thoughts have been on a somewhat sad path today, but it isn't about my own kids. A friend shared an obituary on Facebook this morning, and I recognized the last name. I clicked to read the full story and my suspicions were confirmed; the young woman who had died was the twenty-eight-year-old sister of one of my oldest son's best friends, a young man I've known since he and my son were in first grade. Now they are both thirty-six. I didn't know the girl, but I feel so bad for my son's friend and his family. Twenty-eight! So young. Apparently she had an opiate addiction that led to her death. It's very depressing. I'm not sure (and neither was my son) whether it was pills or heroin, but it doesn't matter. A young life was lost and it is tragic.