Barry Svrluga wrote a beautiful and heartbreaking piece for the Washington Post about Chad Cordero, who is attempting to keep his career afloat with the Blue Jays after losing his daughter Tehya to SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome, in December.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve had children or not. This piece will make you want to tell the important people in your life that you love them.
He is shaken now. There are times during spring training when he heads to a bathroom stall at the Blue Jays’ complex, closing the door to cry. There will be times ahead — on a plane, on a bus — when he won’t be able to hold back.
“I’m gonna lose it,” he said. “I know it’s gonna happen.”
But there are things the Corderos want people to know: how Tehya smiled from her first days, how her dark hair covered her head, how Riley kissed her. They can smile at that. But just because the full-on, physically crippling breakdowns happen less frequently now — no longer round the clock, maybe not even every day — this remains impossibly difficult.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve had children or not. This piece will make you want to tell the important people in your life that you love them.
We’re all rooting for you, Chad.
