The one prayer of every parent is this: “Please, please let them outlive me.”

I mean, parents pray for a lot of other things too, I know I do.

But, I have heard that the loss of a child is about as bad as it gets.

None of us even want to imagine.

“When I held Sam alone for the first time, after Steve and Pammy had gone home the night that he was born, I was nursing him and feeling really spiritual, thinking, Please, please, God, help him be someone who feels compassion, who feels God’s presence loose in the world, who doesn’t give up on peace and justice and mercy for everyone. And then one second later I was begging, Okay, skip all that shit, forget it—just please, please let him outlive me.”