After the loss

Barry Svrluga (Washington Post): PALM HARBOR, FLA. — It was after midnight when the last photo slid into the last envelope, and Chad and Jamie Cordero were done, finally, with their Christmas cards. The pictures were perfect: Jamie holding 18-month-old Riley, and Chad, the erstwhile closer of the Washington Nationals, standing and beaming. His right arm — the one the Nationals worked so hard, the one that eventually wore out — tight around his baby daughter Tehya, whose head, wrapped with a bow, reflected the meaning of her name: precious.

With the photos ready to send, the Corderos flipped off the TV in their Huntington Beach, Calif., home. Riley and Tehya were sleeping at Chad’s parents’ house some 40 miles away in Chino, his home town. Jamie was fresh off surgery to fix an old gymnastics injury. The crutches made it difficult to get around. A night off to prep for the holidays. Normal parenting stuff.

Nothing since that night — since the phone rang and they raced to the car and drove like hell, only to discover their baby girl Tehya had died — has been normal. They now know statistics about SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome, and have met parents like themselves, with losses new and old, nearly all of them still wondering, “Why us?”

-eddie