As a journalist, you’re supposed to be detached from the subjects you write about. It’s how you maintain your objectivity when presenting facts and accurately depicting scenes you’ve witnessed.

All of that flew out the window of Woolworth Chapel in Woodlawn Cemetery when I reached into my pocket for one of at least half a dozen pens and plucked out the one with purple ink. It’s the color Lydia would have chosen.

I was at the funeral for Lydia “Nena” Stephen, whose life and subsequent death after a long bout with cancer has been covered in the pages of the Norwood News over the last month. After “choosing” the purple pen, I immediately thought of Lydia and knew objectivity and detachment would be impossible.

As journalists, we are also human beings.

When I first heard about the story from Samantha Velez, a family friend who called Lydia a “Warrior Princess,” I knew it would make a powerful story of incredible bravery in the face of our greatest fear: death. What I didn’t know is how it would affect me as a person and as a parent.

To put it bluntly, it shook me to my core.

My own daughter was born almost two years ago and continues to be the best thing I’ve ever done.

I’ve found my love for her is stronger than anything I could have imagined. For the most part, I’m pretty laid back, but I find myself furiously worrying about her safety. When we’re walking together, I sometimes envision her breaking away and running into traffic and me being forced to hurtle my own body in front of a car to protect her. And it always strikes me: I have no qualms about dying to save her.

To see another parent go through something like Lydia’s parents — Nicole Ramdin and Joseph Stephen (pictured with Lydia), have had to go through — hits very close to home. No parent should ever have to watch their child die.
But then there was Lydia. Her strength and perseverance made it seem almost okay. If anyone could handle it, she could and did.

Toward the end, Lydia was in tremendous pain and there was little hope for recovery. Still, she kept fighting and breathing and finding small joys in things, like visiting with her 2-year-old brother who loved to steal her socks.

Her mom hung out in a bed right next to hers on the ninth floor of the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. Two weeks before Lydia’s death, I talked with her for more than two hours there while Lydia slept, her thin shoulders shuddering when she breathed.

Nicole laughed and cried, equally, when talking about her second youngest child. She was so sad and tired, but so proud of her baby. She loved talking about her Nena.

At the funeral on a gorgeous Friday morning inside Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the most serene places in the entire Bronx, a group of Franciscan nuns came and sang a couple of songs.

During the first song, “We Have a Hope in Jesus,” I lost it. Tears streaming into my notepad, jaw flapping like I was having a seizure. It wasn’t just me. Everywhere in the full chapel, people were crying for Lydia’s loss.

This, of course, was not according to Lydia’s plan. She wanted no crying at her “going away party.” There would be wine and dancing, but no crying, she told her family and friends. That proved impossible. As Father George Stewart of St. Brendan’s Church said, “Sorry Lydia, we can’t totally oblige you today.”

There was an open casket. Inside, Lydia was all done up, complete with a beautiful white gown (her “wedding gown”) and white wedding veil. Her favorite stuffed animals were arranged around her as if in tight embrace. A single purplish-pink Hello Kitty balloon bobbed near her.

She was angelic. I cried all the way to my car.

When I returned to my office later on, I read the first news reports about the deadly massacre of 20 Connecticut schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn. and went completely numb. It was too hard to fathom. It was like 20 Lydias who I had never met all getting cancer and then immediately dying. There was no getting used to the idea of death for these kids. They were just happy children, full of unbridled potential until they weren’t.

I can’t imagine the horror those parents are going through.

But I think about them and their innocent children, just as I have thought about Lydia and her strong parents. And I think about my daughter and I hold her close every chance I get. It’s all I can do.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece was originally published in the Dec. 27-Jan. 9, 2013 print edition of the Norwood News.