Real talk here: before my wife and I experienced the joy of parenthood (twice), we experienced the crushing pain of a miscarriage. Being on the road and getting that call from my wife still ranks as one of the most difficult moments in my life. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and I certainly wouldn't tell anyone who has lost a child how to grieve. We all handle this differently, as we should.
With that said, the whole "take the dead fetus home" thing Santorum and his wife did? I'll admit, wasn't aware of this until recently, when comments from a Fox News contributor resulting a minor controversy.
Fox News contributor Alan Colmes apologized Monday night for making "hurtful" comments about the events following the 1996 death of Rick Santorum's infant son.Here's the Alan Colmes comment that started the whole thing.
Earlier in the day, Colmes claimed Santorum took the baby home, after living for only two hours, and "played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real."
But Colmes' comments provoked an emotional response from the Republican presidential candidate and his wife earlier Monday.
Santorum choked up when asked to respond to the comments at a campaign event in Iowa. He described Colmes, who also hosts a show on Fox News Radio, as insensitive and gave a much different picture of the loss.
"We kept little Gabriel with us that night and we brought him home the next day," Santorum said at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa. "We brought him home so our children could see him."
Santorum went on to tell the story about burying the child the following day, growing emotional as he spoke about the death and talked about Colmes' remarks.
"To some who don't recognize the dignity of all human life, who see it as a blob of tissue that should be discarded and disposed of, this is somehow weird. Recognizing the humanity of your son is somehow weird, somehow odd, and should be subject to ridicule," Santorum said.
I like Colmes a lot, and listen to his Fox News Radio show whenever I happen to be awake late enough to catch it. He's usually a straight shooter, but he was dead wrong here. To his credit, he did apologize almost immediately to the family, as well as on-air, and I think he was genuine. So there's that.
That said, it's clearly beyond the pale for me to tell someone how to grieve, but taking a dead 20 week old baby home, letting your kids play with it, sleeping in the bed with it, and taking Polaroids just seems jive weird. And creepy.
Thoughts? Not trying to start sh*t or anything, and I'm not even making this political or even about Santorum. But I was wondering what ya'll thought. Tell me.
Question: Is this a wee bit odd, or is everyone entitled to grieve in their own way? Assuming you've experienced a similar loss, how did you handle it?
