What Is One Life Worth?

By Dal LaMagna
Huffington Post

When was the last time you’ve been to services for someone you know who has passed away?

Think about how you felt. Think about all the people around this person and their grief -– the numerous people who showed up at the funeral and at the gravesite, every one of them profoundly grieved.

Sometimes the grief is abated when it’s an elderly person who has had a long life or if it was someone who has been terminally, painfully ill for some time.

But when it is someone’s child - someone in the prime of life - the grief is geometrically larger. When it is an accident it is worse. Imagine that it is your child and he or she died in Iraq. The pain and grief must be unbearable.

About three months ago, my youngest brother died. I can still remember my father who is 87 saying over and over, “Your children aren’t supposed to die before you.