James Joyner’s wife died unexpectedly in her sleep last night, leaving behind an obviously distraught James and two young daughters. She was only 41.
It’s just devastating news for anyone, and I feel horrible for him.
James, you are in our thoughts.
TBogg
Jesus. This is like a kick in the chest and these are people I don’t even really know. Just horrible.
SiubhanDuinne
What an awful thing. I am so very sorry.
Violet
Oh, how awful. Condolences to him, his young children, families and friends.
Yutsano
Pacem a tei good sir. And may the young’uns remember their mother well.
steve
their server is already struggling. I only exchanged half a dozen comments with him over the years. Should i send an email or leave him alone? Don’t know which would be more considerate.
JPL
Someone linked earlier to the post he wrote and how very tragic and sad. My prayers are with him and his family.
steve
not a time or place for insults, UCT
Scott
Don’t know him or his politics, but it doesn’t matter. This is the worst thing that could happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
How he had the strength to write that post, I’ll never know.
Cat Lady
Wow, what a horrible, horrible thing. Wow.
Gregory
Aw, no. I’m so sorry.
JGabriel
My sympathies to James and his family. There are no words.
.
RedKitten
I didn’t know James at all, but reading that news just shocked and saddened me. They look like such a nice young family, and my heart just breaks for those two little girls, and for their daddy.
ArchTeryx
Moderators! Cleanup in Aisle 6!
I can’t imagine such horror. Waking up one morning and finding your seemingly healthy life-partner dead next to you, of totally unknown causes, at 41?
I don’t know if I’d survive that. I hope he and his daughters make it through okay.
JBerardi
I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up.
JGabriel
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: You know, there are times when being an asshole is really out of place.
.
Scott
UCT, you can take that crap somewhere else.
TBogg
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: … and you extended no effort and remained your usual dickish self. Well played…
Scott
Don’t worry T, we got your back.
John Cole
UCT has been deleted and all references to him cleaned. Move along.
TBogg
Thanks John.
Yutsano
@John Cole: Much wailing and gnashing of teef shall ensue. I’ll make popcorn.
My Truth Hurts
41? What happened? Was she sick? Heart attack? That’s so young.
eemom
@John Cole:
oh good Lord — he was spewing his bile even on a thread like this? I wouldn’t have thought that even of HIM.
eemom
@My Truth Hurts:
the cause is unknown so far.
Lojasmo
More than likely a pulmonary embolism or cerebral hemorrhage.
Too young, very sad.
Emma
Dear God. So young, with young kids.
Rhoda
I’m so very sorry for the Joyner family; God bless and keep them in His mercy as they deal with this loss. With the holiday and having so much family the idea of waking to such a loss hit me hard.
JPL
What amazed me reading his post was his desire to find a way to tell his little girl. With medical personnel and police in the house, he was able to amuse her and put her back to bed. It will be difficult but at least he sheltered her during the turmoil.
How very sad.
steve
mom’s friend, about 50, was driving over to see her few months ago and had an aneurysm and died instantly. hit another truck, fortunately slowly and glancingly. If there was any good thing about it, it was instant.
General Stuck
Jeebus, that is so terribly sad. Condolences to the family.
suzanne
Oh, God, this is so sad. My thoughts are with him and his family.
Suzan
My best friend died in her sleep at age 43. After 6 months of testing, they never did find a cause of death. Apparently, sometimes your just heart stops beating. I had night panic attacks for months. My heart is still broken.
Ruckus
Condolences, always condolences.
And yes this is very hard thing to deal with. My aunt died at about that age. Left 4 kids aged 1-12. About 3 years before her 8-10 month old had died in his sleep. This was almost 50 yrs ago and I still remember the pain in that family.
toujoursdan
May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
Tom Levenson
This is as hard as it gets; (family experience not to be discussed here).
My deepest condolences to James Joyner and his family, and the larger circle that his wife gathered around them.
There aren’t really words, but perhaps the formulas we’ve created over the years may help. From my tradition: May this family be comforted among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
amk
those poor kids.
Comrade Mary
I am so, so sorry. Sudden death at any age is just awful, but to lose such a young person and to have a hole ripped in your heart and your family like that is beyond words.
WereBear
What really broke me up was when he said the little girls would only know her through photos and videos. What a terribly sad thing.
Svensker
@steve:
It is never inconsiderate to offer your condolences in a quiet and gentle way. Your e-mail will be appreciated.
steve
in case my intentions be misread, my comment at 25 was intended as a reply to comments 20 & 21, and nothing more.
The Ancient Randonneur
James wrote:
I cried my eyes out when I read that.
My thoughts are with the Joyner family. No politics for me today. I’m done.
Liberty60
I enjoy commenting over at OTB;
Its funny how connected to someone you become, even if nothing more than the occasional exchange of opinion and rhetorical barbs.
My heart goes out to him and his girls.
BGinCHI
That’s terrible and my heart goes out to him.
For anyone who knows who he was, Gary Speed, the Welsh footballer and manager (who also played for years in England), died earlier today (1969-2011). Very sad.
RIP.
schrodinger's cat
RIP Mrs Joyner, such sad news, for Mr Joyner and especially the two little girls.
Not a huge fan of the OTB blog though, the reasonable conservative schtick is tiresome because reasonable conservatives are not so reasonable after all, they want almost everything the not so reasonable conservatives want, they are just more erudite and polite.
Mark S.
Horrible. Thoughts and prayers to James and his family.
Spike
Horrible story, and my heart aches for those poor kids. I was 5 when my father died in a workplace accident, and it still hurts forty-something years later (most of all when I think of what my mother endured).
Wrye
Years ago, I lost my girlfriend to an aneurysm – they can be sudden, with no advance warning, and are a leading killer of middle-aged women. Just a horrible, horrible thing, when it is so out of the blue.
schrodinger's cat
@Spike: That must have been tough {{Spike}}
Steve
Terrible! My heart goes out to the entire family.
Mnemosyne
How terrible for him and his family. My mother died when I was 7, but it was after a long struggle with cancer, so at least my parents had a little time to prepare us for the possibility.
My only advice to him as someone who lost her mother young is to try and write down everything he knows or remembers about his wife and their life together — it will be a treasure for their daughters when they grow up.
arguingwithsignposts
Terrible news. Awful. My condolences.
burnspbesq
@Tom Levenson:
“perhaps the formulas we’ve created over the years may help.”
Yes.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
burnspbesq
@schrodinger’s cat:
You can’t give it a rest for one day?
schrodinger's cat
@burnspbesq:I don’t see what I said was so offensive? In any case it was just my opinion of OTB, YMMV.
Michael D.
@burnspbesq:
This. God. There is NO need for political commentary here. I’ve been acquainted with James for maybe 9-10 years now. I don’t care if you loved him, liked him, or hated him.
Keep it to yourself on this thread. Condolences, or keep your mouth shut. There are people here who, believe it or not, are personally saddened and shocked by this.
fasteddie9318
Can’t imagine what he’s going through, or how he’s going to tell his daughters. That, to me, may be the worst part.
schrodinger's cat
@Michael D.: Guess I have touched a raw nerve among the OTB fans. If you read my comment, I first gave my condolences and then stated my opinion about OTB.
ETA: If I offended anyone by stating my opinion about what I think of OTB in this thread, I am sorry.
I have no personal opinion about him.
Wow, that’s pretty rude, I didn’t know I needed your permission to post comments on Balloon Juice.
fasteddie9318
@schrodinger’s cat: Seriously, a thread about Joyner’s wife dying really isn’t the place for opinions about OTB.
schrodinger's cat
@fasteddie9318: Read my comment above, I already apologized for my earlier comment.
Svensker
@schrodinger’s cat:
If you can be two places at once, I’d suggest the other place at this time.
fasteddie9318
@schrodinger’s cat: As anybody who regularly reads this blog ought to know, “sorry if I offended anyone” isn’t actually an apology.
Michael D.
@fasteddie9318:
Exactly.
schrodinger's cat
@fasteddie9318:
But ganging up on me for an innocuous comment that was not personally vilifying anyone is so appropriate. Well I am not sorry about my opinion of OTB, but I do concede that this thread may not have been the most appropriate venue to verbalize it.
@Svensker: You are so right, I am done with this thread.
HRA
My condolences to James Joyner and his family.
May the Lord give her eternal rest.
Menzies
@burnspbesq:
Another Catholic here to respond:
May she rest in peace. Amen.
wobbly
The older girl may well remember her mother from images stored in her own mind, not just from photos and videos. I remember quite clearly the first time I pulled myself to my feet in a playpen, and then got too scared to let go, and sit back down. I screamed for “Mama” who rushed from the kitchen and set me down gently. I remember my relief and my disappointment that, in her haste to rescue me, Mama had not noticed my amazing feat!
I must have been less than a year old at the time. I have quite a few other memories from before I could walk or speak, but, thank God, my mother lived a good eight decades past my babyhood.
Whenever Mr. Joyner speaks to his elder daughter about her mother’s death, he should tell her the truth as best he can.
My own father’s mother died on fifth birthday, and his idiot relations concocted some story about her “going away”.
They kept him away from the wake and the funeral, and it took months for him to realize that she was never coming back. Months of furious anger that she had “abandoned” him for no apparent reason.
This fury against his own mother marked him for life. When he finally figured out what had actually happened, reason could not uproot that anger. It eventually poisoned all his dealings with women, including with me, his daughter.
That said, I cannot really put myself in Mr. Joyner’s shoes.
I don’t really know what he should say to his daughters. My current spouse is 71, has a slow growing prostate cancer,
which will probably not kill him anytime soon. If and when it does, I will not be left with small children to raise or many years left to live without him as I am 60.
I will be totally distraught anyway.
Mnemosyne
@wobbly:
Ugh. My mother’s death was traumatic enough, but fortunately my dad got some good advice and not only was I at the funeral (though I think I was kept away from the actual wake if there even was one), I was allowed to have some say in the planning (I picked the roses and daisies for the flowers and the 23rd Psalm for one of the readings). I already had plenty of feelings of abandonment, so I can barely imagine how much worse it would have been to be told I actually had been abandoned.
licensed to kill time
Wow. I cannot imagine trying to explain this to your 3 yr old. My heart aches for the whole family….I’ve recently been through something very similar and I know how incredibly painful and unreal the whole thing can be. You wake up each day thinking it was all a bad dream, and then…..reality sets in.
Really, there are no words except, I’m so sorry.
Jane2
How devastating for James and his family. I read his post on his site and they looked like a great young family…I can’t imagine what he must be (and will be) going through.
trollhattan
Sad, terribly sad. My condolences to the family–this will be their toughest journey imaginable.
Something very similar happened to friends just last month and he (the husband) is now alone for the first time in twenty years while she leaves behind a classroom of devastated students–her extended family and her very life. I still have no words.
gene108
If anyone knows how to contact this guy, let him know the three year old will remember her mom.
My older brother and I were roughly the ages of Joyner’s kids, when our dad died. He has memories of our dad, I don’t. Creates a bit of a different world view between the two of us.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
My heart goes out to the Joyner family. I saw it early enough at LGM that I went to OTB to read the piece where he describes how he distracted their older daughter without telling her. Heart wrenching to read. I hope he is surrounded with people who will be gentle as he grieves.
Mnemosyne
Random note: if anyone is confused by what I’ve posted in this thread because I’ve been asking in other threads about places to donate to for my mom’s Christmas present, that’s actually for my stepmom. She’s been my mom for over 30 years now. Just to clear that up, if necessary.
Angela
Oh how devastating. Loss is always difficult, and how much more so when it is so sudden. I hope too that he, and their girls, will be surrounded with people who will be gentle as he grieves. (Thanks for the words a hip hop artist from Idaho, I could not find any others that said what I meant better. )
Libby
Oh no. How awful. Thanks for letting us know so I can send my condolences.
rikyrah
just looking at the picture made me cry. that poor man. those poor babies.
Genine
How sad! My condolences to the Joyner family.
Ash Can
How unspeakably tragic. No one, and no family, should ever have to go through this. There are simply no sufficient words.
Will
James has always seemed like a truly decent person, even when I’ve disagreed with him. I ache over what he must be going through right now.
Arclite
So sad. My kids are a few years older, as is my wife, but I can’t imagine the terrible impact my wife’s death would have on our family and friends. My heart goes out to Mr. Joyner. Hopefully he will get the support he needs from family and friends to make it through this tragedy.
Gemina13
I saw this yesterday, and tried to think of some way to respond. I am so sorry for Mr. Joyner–I can only think that to wake up and find your spouse, the love of your life, lying dead next to you would be a brutal blow.
The littlest girl may not remember her mother, but the three-year-old will definitely remember and miss Mommy. And that is what her mother is going to be to her, lifelong–not photographs or anecdotes, but Mommy who gave her baths, fed her, picked out her clothes and combed her hair, read stories to her and sang lullabies at bedtime. And it will break her heart over and over again. Mr. Joyner won my respect for the fact that he kept her from learning about her mother’s death while the paramedics were there, and let her go back to bed. A loss like that needs to be broken gently to a small child. It’s like losing half your world before you even know what your world will encompass, and it’s hard enough on us adults when our parents go.
worn
I don’t think I even have it in me to imagine how horrible this is for James. I’m crying inside and I don’t even know the man or his family. I decided last night not to leave a comment on his site, simply because of worries about server loads. I hope that through some kind of internet osmosis he will receive our condolences by proxy. Please take good care of yourself and your little girls, James. Even as a non-religous man I feel no hesitation in saying that my prayers are with you.
As an aside, I don’t know what’s going on, but it truly seems like something is off axis with the world right now. I am simply staggered at how much bad news has been coming down the pike here in the last 3 or so months (speaking strictly of me, my family & friends).
Take care all, and hold tight to those you love. Life is so very fleeting.