17 June 2010

Henry Louis Granju, 1991-2010

Katie Allison Granju, one of the earliest American lay proponents of what's now somewhat well-known as attachment parenting, recently lost her oldest child to drug addiction. He'd been an addict for about four years. Granju was summoned to the hospital one night and found her son in the ICU, hooked up to a ventilator and in a drug-induced coma; he had been savagely beaten up after buying or selling some drugs. He lingered for about six weeks, seeming to improve a little, and then passed away on 31 May.
I was with him, holding his hand, stroking his hair and loving on him as he died. He struggled in his final hours to let go, and just as I birthed him into this world, I tried to help him move peacefully into the next one. It felt like the most important mothering task I've ever undertaken. More important, even than growing him in my belly.

So I pressed my lips to his ear, and I whispered to him over and over that it was okay to go, and that he was going somewhere wonderful with no more pain, and that I would follow him there and see him again when the time was right. I told him over and over to just trust me and let go. I sang to him. I recited Goodnight Moon. I told him not to worry about me, or his father, or his sisters and brother, because we would be okay.
Henry was 18.

I've been raising my daughter on attachment parenting principles, and Granju's writings have influenced me and a lot of other moms who've sought to balance "natural family living" ideas with the exigencies of modern, urban lifestyles. I think a lot of attachment parenting types smugly assume that they've inoculated their kids from drug abuse and juvenile delinquency by hitting all the right practices on the checklist: unmedicated childbirth, co-sleeping, breastfeeding and late weaning, carrying baby in a sling, cloth diapering, avoiding vaccinations, homeschooling or unschooling, reading radical parenting zines, and using only all-organic, unprocessed foods. Granju's loss is tragic and sobering and it's hit me hard.

I never talk about the possibility of losing my daughter. I call it the unspeakable and this slim paragraph is likely the most I've ever written about it, and ever will. I can't imagine what Granju -- who is anticipating the birth of her fifth child in just a couple of weeks -- and her family are going through right now.

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