Commentary

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado Had my daughter lived she would’ve just celebrated her 25th birthday. She died of a vicious form of cancer just days before her first birthday. She was our only child at the time. Twenty-four years later, I still have no way to express what it is like to be a parent one day and then not the next. I had no idea what terror was before that day. Her death is the seminal event of my life. The world changed, never to shift back. If you’ve lost a child, you get it. If not, I envy you. I am forever indebted to those who pulled me through. Many had lost children themselves. I have tried to pay them back by being there myself for grieving parents, particularly men. We men have been conditioned to bottle up our pain (we are rarely rewarde...