I think I am doing all I can to surrender and embrace the grief of losing Jacob. Grief is the price you pay for love. A boy do I love that boy! Before you lose a child you tend to think it happens to others, the stories you read about in magazines while you wait for your appointment with the doctor to pass the time. But when you’ve joined the bereaved parents club you begin to find out that there are even more people and families out there that would fill several hundreds of magazines with their stories of loss. We are not exempt from the sadness of loss and neither is anyone else. Death doesn’t discriminate who’s family to tear apart. As I have continued to read those magazine stories at random times I have learnt that the tragedy of losing a child touches famous people too. Famous people that we envy their lifestyles, but you’d never think in your worst nightmare we’d be connected by the one thing that holds an incredible hurt. Here are some of the celebrities who have lost a child:* John Travolta – Jett at 16

* Sylvester Stallone – Sage at 36

* Mike Tyson – Exodus at 4

* Keanu Reeves – Ava – born sleeping

* Mia Farrow – Tam at 19

* Eric Clapton – Connor at 4

* Led Zepplin – Robert Plant’s son at 5
I was tagged in a piece of writing on Facebook by a friend of mine who thought of me when she read it. I loved every word this person wrote – another celebrity sharing a candid private message on how to deal with the loss of someone special in your life. I will take on the meaning of his words as I continue to surrender and embrace my grief of losing Jacob. Quoting Christopher Walken’s wise words for all grieving parents –
“Someday you will be faced with the reality of loss. And as life goes on, days rolling into nights, it will become clear that you never really stop missing someone special who’s gone, you just learn to live around the gaping hole of their absence. When you lose someone you can’t imagine living without, your heart breaks wide open, and the bad news is you never completely get over the loss. You will never forget them. However, in a backwards way, this is also the good news. They will live on in the warmth of your broken heart that doesn’t fully heal back up, and you will continue to grow and experience life, even with your wound. It’s like badly breaking an ankle that never heals perfectly, and that still hurts when you dance, but you dance anyway with a slight limp, and this limp just adds to the depth of your performance and the authenticity of your character. The people you lose remain a part of you. Remember them and always cherish the good moments spent with them.”