The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Proof Of Loss

What Losing A Child Taught Me About Death

My son Ronan’s time of death is recorded as 715 am on his death certificate, but this is a lie. He died at 230 am of GM2 Gangliosidosis: “a rare inherited disorder that progressively destroys nerve cells (neurons) in the brain and spinal cord.” He had Tay-Sachs disease. The day we are born is the day we all begin to die, but for Ronan that cliché was the truth, and the unraveling happened quickly.

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