Loss of a Child

I was debating whether or not to blog about this, but I thought it's been on my mind, maybe blogging will help with my sadness. I found out a couple of days ago that one of my friend's lost her boy to cancer. When I read her post I teared up and was immediately sad for Karen. People say I can't imagine, but I can. I have never had this experience, but to think about losing one of my own children would be very devastating. To actually have it happen, I'm sure is much harder. He died Sunday, Oct. 26th, at home. He had lost his battle with brain cancer at the age of 17. When we first moved to Arizona, it was to the town of Flagstaff. There we connected with a family in our ward, the Russell's. Karen and John are great people and we had fun together while in Flagstaff. Our kids played together all the time. Her son Noah and Tyler are only days apart in age and would play every day. Her other son Aaron was a little older than Leigh, and would come and pick her up and they would walk together to the bus stop for school. Karen and I would hang out at each other's house and we even had them over for dinner at least once (that I can remember). They moved to Utah a couple of months before we moved to the valley. We've known Marcus since he was 12. He was a great kid. Very talented musically. He played in the school band, and from his mother's blog, continued it until he wasn't physically able to. We were fortunate enough to be visited by the Russell's this summer. They came to our house and had dinner with our family. We had great fun talking, just like before. John and Karen, we love you and will pray for family during this difficult time. They have three other boys, Marcus was the oldest.