When Sadness Hits Hard

My daughter Meghann homeschools and has a business where she provides curricula for homeschool families. Her website is Rooted Childhood and she is well-known in the homeschool world.

So it was with great sadness Meghann announced the death of another amazing homeschooling mom, Emily Mitchell. Em was the mom of 4 beautiful children, the wife of a loving husband and was an extremely loving Christian. She was also pregnant.

According to the GoFundMe page, Em, who had no complications and was a completely healthy woman, was eating her breakfast on December 22 and then collapsed, dying even with the help of everyone and EMS. An autopsy is being done to find the exact cause, but it seems to have been a blood clot that broke loose and zoomed to her heart, killing her instantly. Killing her and her unborn baby.

The homeschool community has been a point of much sadness this week, being reminded of the precariousness of life. COVID-19 has had a similar impact in too many families this year, but this death has hit even me (and many others) very hard.

How could a perfectly healthy mom just die? In front of her children? At Christmas, the most holy day of Em’s family’s year? Meghann thought about all the projects Em was working on for her kids, thinking about the stashes of presents, the Christmas dinner they were looking forward to. And now these kids’ lives are forever changed, Christmas now will be a time of sadness and mourning.

Please hold this family in your hearts and, if you pray, your prayers. Hug your children and your partner hard. Remember how short… how really short… our lives here on earth.