Jacob Swenson-Lengyel is a writer and social movement strategist. After his son Jules died in 2021, he began writing a series of essays about his experience, which can be found below. His essays and op-eds have appeared in The Point Magazine, The Chicago Sun-Times, In These Times, and elsewhere. He is a member of the Convergence Magazine editorial board.
For the last decade, Jacob has worked with social justice organizations and coalitions at the intersection of big ideas and collective action. He has worked for Narrative Intiative, Pennsylvania Stands Up, People’s Action, and Interfaith Worker Justice, and helped create the People’s Lobby in Chicago. He currently heads Good Sense Strategies and partners with organizations seeking to make justice, democracy and freedom common sense.
Letters Following the Death of My Son
Mirrors and Portals, Absence and Desire
Today is what Willa and I call “Jules’ Day,” the day of the month when Jules was born and when he died. He would have been eleven months old today and I miss him dearly. Willa was the first to say, “I miss Jules,”after we returned home from the hospital in...
Significant Places
On Father’s Day, I packed up Jules’ nursery for our move to North Carolina. It was an ironic act, or perhaps a symbolic one: I am now the kind of father who is tending to an empty crib. We have been returning to the world slowly over the last few months....
A Word About My Wife
Two things happened on December 17th: Jules died and Willa lived. Willa's survival was no sure thing. When we drove her from the birth center to the hospital, the doctors rushed her to surgery, just like they do on television, shouting "go, go, go." After everyone ran from the large intake room...
Memorial
When I stood to speak at Jules memorial, I was hollow as a reed. Sadness lapping only at my edges, like a murky pond; even so, enough to make my voice shake. Willa, fellow reed, put her hand on my back to offer support. So too I offered my hand to her when she gave her eulogy. I had been dreading...
Mourning Rituals
Three weeks after Jules died, the week Willa's eyesight began to return, we decided to make a schedule. The proceeding few weeks had a structure of their own, taken up as they were with nursing shift changes, ER visits, medication regimens, and, I suspect, hugely elevated levels of adrenaline and...
Death Is Not An Event
We sometimes imagine our lives as though we are conductors of a locomotive, traveling through the countryside of our life as the crossties pass uniformly below. At intervals, we may flip the switch at a crossroads, moving ourselves onto new tracks headed towards a different point on the horizon....
Care for the Dead
If you told me that my most precious memories would be those where I held my dead child, I wouldn't have believed you. I couldn't have believed you. For, if you told me that my firstborn son would die — like the cursed children of the Pharaoh's Egypt — it would have felt inconceivable. This...
The Unreality of Death
Time is hurtling us inexorably forward. Each second - minute - hour - day - week - month is taking us further and further from the time when we could at least hold Jules, feel his skin on our skin, savor the touch of his downy soft hair. We are powerless in the face of time's passage. We...
Letter from an Isle Called Grief
For the last three weeks, much of the attention in our household has been focused on bodily matters, as Willa continues to mend physically and has been slowly recovering her eyesight. Her vision is almost back to normal, but is still blurry in her left eye. The ophthalmologist wants to see her...
Thank you and Update
I want to say thank you to all of you who have been sending cards, emails, texts and messages on social media. Each one, in every form received, has been read, and brought us comfort. Many have also brought us to tears and have been an aid to us in grief. Even though most of you live at a...
Remembering Our Beloved Baby Jules
Our beloved baby boy, Jerome Louis Swenson-Lengyel (Jules), died as Willa birthed him at 10:57am on Friday, December 17th. Willa went into labor the previous evening and she had been birthing him with exceptional grace. Jules had been healthy, strong and active, but during the penultimate stage of...