I don't think anybody can deny that's a real nice painting of a broad on a couch.

Crap, my comment @1 was for an entirely different paper, stupid multitasking fail... and in light of Jen's story, now I appear as a callous heel.

It is a very sad and touching story.

Brava, Jen! Best piece of yours I've ever read. I am sorry for your losses. I am even sorrier that in this culture death is treated as an obscenity, a gaucherie.

I know that painting well, and you're the only other person who's shared her thoughts about it with me. It has a visceral punch: I started to cry the first time I ever saw it. Thanks for dissecting the artifice of it with me and making me love it all over again.

BTW, did you like the one of Peale's sons going up a staircase? He is a forgotten American wonder.

I am at work and was about to cry, because this was a beautiful piece and probably the best thing Jen has ever written, but Urgutha, your mis-posting made me laugh just in time.

Beautiful piece, beautifully and honestly written. Thank you for it.

I too am very familiar with that painting, but have not seen it in person since I had my son six years ago. Knowing how much it affected me back then, I imagine I would also burst into tears if I see it again.

Jen, you've written a moving essay that provides a smart dissection of a beautiful painting at the same time showing how good criticism connects art with personal experience. I agree with laterite -- this is not only one of the best things you've ever written, it's one of the smartest, most powerful pieces I've seen in 18 years of reading The Stranger.

Jen, you've written a moving essay that provides a smart dissection of a beautiful painting at the same time showing how good criticism connects art with personal experience. I agree with laterite -- this is not only one of the best things you've ever written, it's one of the smartest, most powerful pieces I've seen in 18 years of reading The Stranger.

beautiful, jen.

@1, 2: best posting fail I think I've ever seen on Slog. Now we know there's a fetish for everything; Urgutha is into baby corpses!

Your work is always a joy to read.

It's also my birthday. Thanks for bringing dead babies into it, Jen.

Thanks so much, Jen. This was a beautiful, touching post.

Wow, this is an almost unbearably beautiful piece of writing. Bravo.

Wow, Jen. These kinds of essays are always my favourite of yours to read, and this one tops them all. Thank you for sharing this story with us.

This painting, and this post, really stopped me in my tracks.

Dying children have been in my world, too.

My son was born three months early and spent his last trimester in the NICU at Swedish. Far from the quintessential romantic birth experience, for three months we lived in a limbo where babies lived and died. My son is fine now, but his beginning was wrought with the fear of endings. We lost two little friends we met in the NICU.

Thanks for sharing about yourself. My miscarriage anniversary is in March.

Your question, Is it harder to lose a child now than it used to be? -- I've wondered that too.

Phoenix is a beautiful name.

This made me cry. I'm so sorry for your loss, and for Phoenix's parents. And for the Peales. It's every parent's worst nightmare, and some have to live the nightmare. I can't think of anything harder. But if my son died I think I would still be glad to have known him for the time I did, and even though I'd be so devastated at all the experiences he missed, I'd be glad that for a handful of months he was able to know love and cuddles and song and the pleasures of warm sunlight and sweet-tasting food. I hope these little lives can be celebrated as well as mourned.

I am lucky enough to be Phoenix's mom (as well as our youngest son, Gabriel) and to have Jen as my best friend. She is indeed remarkable and I am lucky in that as well.

I don't think it is easier to lose a child now than it used to be. I have talked to very old women who lost a child 60 and 70 years ago who, to their own dying days, hungered to speak of the child they lost and in that, claim them again as their own. I have seen that love expressed in the writings of bereaved parents of long ago and in a historic cemetery dotted with majestic monuments to children who died 100 years ago.

Last year, on the anniversary of Phoenix’s death, I cleaned the ancient grave of a child buried not far from my son underneath all the years of accumulated grime, found the remnants of an inscription that said, "… all the light, all the joy we buried with our darling boy." A friend who lost a teenage son told me she didn't think it was possible to love a child any more that you do at the time they die - and I don't think the ferocity of that love changes through the centuries.

In that enduring love is life. As one commenter noted, it is the life that went before the death that matters most. Phoenix's short life was brilliant and full of love and laughter. and I will always be proud to be his mother.

On today, the anniversary of Jen's miscarriage, I am also thinking of another little being who will not be forgotten. I remember.

As the Dad of a 10 month old girl, who never imagined he would be one (44 year old gay men tend not to become dads that often), I find that life is full of surprises that I hadn't realised where going to happen to me.

The idea of losing my beautiful daughter was never something I considered until reading Jen's article. I am sitting in my office feeling slightly teary at the thought.

I have to agree that the pain that I would feel would be of a different type to that of a mother, but I would also say that it would be as deep, as life long and as meaningful. I know that Jen wasn't saying that Dads suffer easier or shallower, but I thought that I would state it very clearly.

The friend who I helped to make our gorgeous daughter, suffered a miscarriage on the way to her conception and birth and I am often drawn to think about that lost possibility. I often wonder if it would have been a boy or a girl and what would have happened had that child arrived and not the amazing bundle we ended up with.

Thank you for reminding me to cherish every moment I have with Georgina and not to waste any of them.

I can only barely understand your feelings of loss for Phoenix Linda. He sounds like he was a delight to you and all who knew him, but know that others understand it and thank you for letting Jen talk about him.

Thank you Jen for sharing your feelings about your loss too.