When we got THE call that night, everything went black. How?? What?? Why??!!! Since that moment, our life, as we knew it, ended. We were thrust into, what up until now was unbeknownst to us, a private “club” of grieving parents. Losing a parent, while tremendously difficult, is universal and ubiquitous. Losing a child is a different kind of grief. It’s very intimate, quiet; it show full storyis so deep that we constantly fear we are going to drown in it. Losing a child is going against the way of Nature. The universal law of order is that parents are supposed to die before their children, not the other way around! It’s almost impossible to describe this new way of existence. It’s as if, all of a sudden, we’ve become newborn babies, learning for the first time how to breathe, eat, crawl, walk, talk, and live in this new world without Max. No, I take it back!! It IS 100% impossible to describe it!! One has to, unfortunately, live it to understand it. This is where Stephy’s Place comes in. We don’t need to describe, excuse, explain or justify our grief. At Stephy’s Place it is embraced and witnessed with deep compassion by other grieving parents. Without judgement and expectations, we are able to sit with it, to get to know it. Unfortunately, it is our new horrific reality and Stephy’s Place is where we are slowly getting to know it. While we are still fumbling in the darkness that is now our life, Stephy’s Place offers us and many others, although tiny, a steady glimmer of light and hope. We hope you can join our team “King Max #19” in honoring Max and supporting this incredible organization on “A Mourning Walk” on September 8th. We thank you in advance, Larisa and Frank.