What Not to Say to a Parent Who's Lost a Baby

1. You'll have another baby.

2. It wasn't meant to be.

3. It was God's will.

4. God needed another angel in heaven, or, the variant, God needed your baby in heaven more than you needed your baby here. (You really think God is that freakin' cruel? That's not a God I want any part of.)

5. Your baby couldn't have survived if he'd been born.

6. I know just how you feel. (Hint: Unless your baby died too, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. None whatsoever.)

7. It happened for a reason. (There is no good reason for my child to have died. He was not meant to have died. But he did anyway.)

I hope someone comes here, someone who is in danger of saying some of these horrible phrases to newly bereaved parents, and learns something. The best thing anyone can say is simply this: "I'm sorry."

Readers, do you have anything to add to my list? I'm sure you do, so please, help me enlighten the rest of the world.