My Son Died When He Was Just 4 Years Old. All These Years Later, Here’s What Still Keeps Me Up At Night.

My son Jake died when he was 4. Fifteen years after his death, I struggle with how to answer the question everyone asks: What happened?

It’s seemingly such a simple question, one I might even ask when I hear about a child’s death. And yet, it leaves me tongue-tied every time and instantly makes even the best of conversations feel awkward. Why? Because I still don’t know what happened.

I don’t know why Jake first got sick. I don’t know why he didn’t recover. And I don’t know why he died.

Jake was born healthy and remained that way for the first eight months of his life. He wasn’t just healthy, he was thriving — high APGAR scores, no weight drops and meeting all the early milestones ahead of schedule. That’s why what happened didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t even make sense to some of the world’s best doctors. So why should I expect it to make sense to the people who unknowingly step into a minefield by asking that question?

That’s why it makes me so uncomfortable: I know where the conversation is going, and it isn’t good for anyone involved.