Worst Fears

The Strib's current piece, "What Killed Reece Miekle" - currently in part two of five - is a wrenching, draining read for any parent. The story - in which a family's middle child dies of a mysterious blood ailment that I'm hoping we learn about by episode five - is any parent's worst nightmare.

Worse still is the realization that I know the mother, Leona Miekle (nee Hoy, if memory serves) from high school. Although Reece died over a year ago, please send the family your thoughts and prayers.

Oddly, that's twice in ten years that people I've known in high school have turned up in the Twin Cities media after losing children to mysterious diseases.