[img]1507|right|Basil_Kimbrew||no_popup[/img]Basil Kimbrew knew that the pain he never has been able to shake would reach its most acute peak last Saturday. It does every year on Dec. 13.
As editor of the lively blog California Friends of the African American Caucus (cafriendsofaacc@gmail.com), he did what journalists do when in need. He wrote:
Today is the day that my first born son, Rueshawn Kimbrew, died, December 13, 1993, at the age of 19. Please say a special prayer for me. I really need prayers today. It is rough for me.
I also pray for all of those parents who lost a child on this same day.
Mr. Kimbrew, political consultant, chef, strongly active military veteran and journalist, was overwhelmed. He received “over one million responses” from all over the world, he said this morning. “I was stunned. Blew me away. It was just kind of like, wow. Every time I think about it…oh.”
Twenty-one years of grief can bring a sensitive man to this conclusion:
“People talk about how they have overcome drugs, how they have overcome alcoholism. But you never, never recover from the loss of a child.”
What makes the Basil Kimbrew story so engaging is that he is one of the most genuinely outgoing denizens in Moreno Valley and in his region of the political universe.
Faith Brings Him Through
But beneath his skin, the loss of his first child gnaws so aggressively, so tormentingly that if it were not for his faith in God, he would have been chewed up by now.
Pain threaded through each fibre of the grieving father all of last week.
Wednesday was Rueshawn’s birthday. Three days later, there was the anniversary of Rueshawn’s death.
This past Sunday, a military veteran who had read about Mr. Kimbrew’s son, tipped him off about the tragedy of a dying little girl in Utah (“Probably the Final Christmas for a Failing 6-Year-Old”). Since Mr. Kimbrew had received a million messages for his son, he planted the notion with his readers of sending a million Christmas cards for little Addie, off in Utah, on her presumed final Christmas.
Mr. Kimbrew was and is devastated by Rueshawn’s death.
“I wake up in the morning thinking about Rueshawn and I go to bed thinking about his death,” the father said. “It took me a long time to recognize that I was angry. Everybody says a child should not die before hos parents.”
One of Mr. Kimbrew’s healing methods: “I go into deep thought, and I pray that other parents will not have to go through what I did. Then I pray for God to give me strength.
“Hey, every day is hard for me.
“I might smile a lot and talk a lot,” says the effusive raconteur. “But deep down, I hurt. I have hurt every day since the day he died. But I don’t let people see that.
“Every time I hear about a child dying early, it brings back memories.”
Mr. Kimbrew seeks out persons every day to whom he can convey an encouraging word about becoming and staying steadfast.
