Zachary Horner Mitnick: March 6, 1986 - Forever in Our Hearts
- denisemitnick
- Mar 4
- 6 min read
Forty years is a lifetime. Almost. Our son, Zachary Horner Mitnick was born forty years ago and survived the challenges of his prematurity for only a few days. Those days were filled with what seemed like a thousand life and death decisions. Bearing witness to his suffering was the least I could do as his mother. There was no space between my husband and me as we decided “no heroic medical intervention.” The likelihood of his survival was extremely low. If he could miraculously survive those first barbaric medical interventions, he would have a life of severe struggles, pain, and require skilled care. We just waited for him to die as his care team administered palliative care.
There is so much more to tell, but not for this blog. I have often written brief essays or Facebook posts about Zachary and his impact on our entire extended family, his siblings (who came a few years later), and on Stephen and me. His little life made a huge ripple. Being the mother of a lost soul—trying to honor his life—is like trying to catch a rainbow. Remembering him on the anniversary of his birth is part of our family’s ritual. We have planted gardens, donated funds to various causes supporting preemies, and created a family endowed scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, including Zachary in its naming. None of our efforts ever feels satisfying enough. It cannot possibly meet the moment of suffering he or we have been through, which leads me to the point of this blog/essay.
After we lost Zachary and began the healing process, Stephen’s grandmother, Nanny Ethel, invited us to visit her in Florida. We were living in Philadelphia at the time. I was very ill after delivering Zachary, requiring hospitalization and recovery, so we couldn’t visit until late April or early May. I cannot remember exactly when we made the trip. Neither of us wanted to go, but we felt Nanny needed the visit as much as we did, so we obliged her request. When we arrived, Nanny had all Stephen’s favorite foods prepared, and she received us with her usual warmth, hugs and kindness. I was polite, but not fully engaged. I was a hair-trigger away from a full-blown melt down. At least it felt that way. And Stephen had repressed his own feelings while he was acting as caregiver to a wife in deep despair and a very slow recovery from a complicated delivery that left me at death’s door (I had developed sepsis).
Nanny was one of the wisest people I had ever met. She was a sweet, loveable older woman, who didn’t suffer fools lightly. She “told it like it was” and was a fierce defender of her family. I was now included in that tribe. One afternoon, shortly after our arrival, she sent Stephen out on errands. She then sat me down for what was the beginning of my healing process. Nanny began with her own story of loss.
She and her husband had lost their firstborn child, also a son. In those days, as she described it, every sign of a soon-to-be-baby was removed from her home, and no talk about what happened ever occurred. She spoke of her personal journey with grief; how angry she was with God— “How could you do this to me? I am a devout woman!” She spoke of how difficult it was to be around others with babies until she went on to have her two healthy daughters. She never knew what happened to Harry, her baby, until shortly before her husband died in old age, when she asked where Harry was buried. Then she said the most resonant part to me. She said, “Harry would be fifty-seven.”
My memory is that we hugged each other and cried. Here was a woman, almost eighty years old, telling me about the loss of her baby son she thought about often. Every holiday. Every year on his birthday. Every milestone in family life. The empty chair at the table. Forever. “And now I know why God chose me. He chose me so I could help you today.” A sweet sentiment, but I don’t think about God in those terms. It wasn’t lost on me, however, that she was making sense of her own loss. We were, in that moment, two grieving mothers, helping each other heal. When I heard her story, I realized that I had a choice to make. It wasn’t that this horrific event in my life would define me, but I would carry it forever. The path would be how I chose to carry it.
I have learned over the years that grief lives on a continuum with life. And the way that I have processed the loss of my baby boy is to never let the sorrow run ahead of the joy. Never let the pain walk ahead of tolerance. Never let fear be more powerful than hope. I am not suggesting I don’t have horrible suffering. For me, those moments are sometimes predictable and often occur during coming-of-age experiences other families enjoy with their sons. I can never anticipate when that stabbing pain in my heart will happen. Shortly after Zachary’s birth, I couldn’t be around babies. Hard to avoid, but not impossible. I still don’t watch movies about the loss of a child. I avoid books with that topic as well. When I hear the name Zachary, my heart skips a beat. A few years ago, we were attending a wedding, and the mother and son had a special dance together. They danced to John Lennon’s “Beautiful, Beautiful Boy,” and I lost it. I turned to Stephen, who was feeling pain too. We leaned into each other, and I took a dinner napkin, put it over our heads, and we wept. A few tears, but enough to remind us, we would always be “that couple who lost a son.”
As fate would have it, we know too many people who have lost children, or who couldn’t get pregnant and have similar feelings around loss. In our close circle of friends, we have two dear, dear friends who have tragically lost adult sons. They each bear grief of a different kind. But grief bearing isn’t a contest. And even if it were, it isn’t one you would want to win. Showing up for people in grief is so important. Just be with your friends, coworkers, family, neighbors as they grieve. Forever. Be there for them on their sad days. Just say, “I am here”. Do not offer advice or say things like, “You’ll have other children”. Children are not fungible—one doesn’t replace the other. And do not say, “I know what you’re feeling”, or any other thought you think might be helpful. Just be with your person-of-loss in spirit, or hold a hand, or hug them. Just be there. Show up.
Remember that feelings have partners. Love/hate. Fear/Safety. Failure/Success. As you go through grief yourself, remember you are not alone. And sometimes you may have to ask for support in your grief. Be specific if you can. And if you can’t, remember that happiness is a choice. You can allow yourself time for suffering, and then do something that balances that pain with joy. When Zachary died, someone sent a basket of miniature daffodils which at once, captured my love of flowers, and as well, the tiny delicate miniature flower reminded me of Zachary, my baby who was the size of a Cabbage Patch Baby Doll. The gesture also captured what I have now come to believe was such hopefulness—that Spring will always return if we are open to the possibility of its joy and its blooming.
I have yet to dedicate a garden to Zachary’s memory on our Asheville property, and I think this year I might be ready for that. He does not have a final resting place, as we donated his tiny body to science. It gives us great hope that he was part of the research that now saves preemies born with his deficits, allowing these little souls to lead normal lives and sparing generations of families the deep scars losing a child presents.
I wish I never had to go through the very challenging pregnancy with Zachary, or the deeply wounding aftermath of losing him and putting my life back together. But we do not get to choose all of our journeys, only the pathways forward. I am grateful to have survived the near-death experience that sepsis wreaked upon my weak body in 1986. I am forever indebted to the many angels that supported us, some of whose names I will never knew, and to those who remain in our lives today. You have all helped us realize that life is for the living, and what and how we choose each day matters largely on outlook, attitude, and fortitude.
My life was forever changed, as all parents are changed in assuming the role of parent, just not in ways I had prepared. I wish I had thanked Nanny for her profound input in stepping into my circle of pain and putting her healing hand in mine, but I can only pay it forward. To my partner-in-the-possible, whose repair began later than mine around Zachary’s loss in his life, I am grateful for your steadfast devotion to us—in all our guises, but most importantly to co-parenting with me. To our daughters who paid a steep price for having to follow Zachary’s loss, you will both always be the greatest lights in my universe. Saying “I love you” seems insufficient.
And to the memory of Zachary, my angel baby, I will love you through all of eternity.
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