family focus
Coping With
The Loss
Of A Child
Barbara Lewis
Contributing
Writer
I
L
osing a child is not something
parents ever "recover" from.
But they do learn ways to cope.
For Gabriella Burman, writing about her
late daughter was one of those ways.
Her collection of seven essays,
Michaela, was chosen by Michigan
Writers Cooperative Press in Traverse
City as one of two "chapbooks" (short,
inexpensive booklets) it published at the
end of May.
Burman's life was
turned inside out on
May 23, 2009, when
her firstborn daugh-
ter, Michaela, died in
her sleep at age 5.
Michaela had been
born with cerebral
Gabriella
palsy and required
Burman
a lot of special care,
including a feeding
tube, a standing frame and a wheelchair.
But she was otherwise healthy; no one
anticipated her early demise.
Burman, 41, says she has always been
a writer, and writing was her major at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
She worked as a journalist in Atlanta
before she and her husband, Adam
Kaplan, returned to the Detroit area to
be near her parents after Michaela was
born. They live in Huntington Woods.
Burman works as communications
coordinator at Hillel Day School in
Farmington Hills, which she attended as
a child.
,
1
i
her readers forget the overwhelming
loss that has shaped her, that continues
to shape her, and she doesn't let herself
get away with any fatuous platitudes
or easy answers:' said Keith Taylor, a
University of Michigan creative writing
teacher who was one of two judges for
the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press
chapbook contest.
"What we are left with is the example
of endurance, and endurance assumes its
own rough nobility:'
The essays will help Burman's other
daughters, Ayelet, 8, Maayan, 6, and
Ilanit, 4 months, know their sister, she
said, "so that they will have some experi-
ence of her bright eyes and long lashes
and flirtatious manner, which amassed
legions of admirers:'
Burman says she could write another
book on "things not to say to parents
who have lost a child:'
She and her husband continually
struggle with how to answer strangers'
innocent query about how many chil-
dren they have.
Most often she tells them she has four,
then turns the conversation back to the
questioner. "Usually this is sufficient in
casual exchanges with most people, who
prefer to talk about themselves anyway,"
she said.
If someone sees her with the girls and
comments about her "three" daughters,
she usually doesn't correct them.
But she's upset when people who
know them refer to the couple as hav-
ing three children. For her and Adam,
Michaela is still very much part of the
family. They take her framed photo with
them on vacation. Ayelet and Maayan
sign Michaela's name on birthday cards
they make.
Well-meaning friends may think they
cause pain by mentioning Michaela, but
the opposite is true, Burman said.
"And people shouldn't be so afraid of
imposing pain; it's always
there," she said. As par-
ents who are bereaved,
we wish nothing more
than that our child be
remembered:'
Knowing Michaela
Burman began writing the essays so
those who never knew the oldest of her
four daughters could learn something
about her.
One searing piece recalls the day
Michaela died. Burman had given birth
to her third daughter just 12 days ear-
lier, and Michaela was
enjoying a sleepover
with her grandparents
in Southfield.
Burman, Kaplan
and her parents are
all Shabbat-observant,
so when her parents
telephoned early that
Saturday morning,
Burman knew it meant
bad news.
Gabriella Burman's four
Burman "never lets
daughters
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July 16 • 2015
43