I Hosted an "Ask Me Anything"

Anyone heard of Reddit? Start here if you've never heard of it. I know many of my geekier friends probably, but most likely not everyone who might read this will also have been to that site before. Reddit is a social news site owned by the same folks as Wired.com, among other sites and magazines. The community is a bit of a cynic's paradise with an interesting mix of humor, geek love and good will. They have a subsection specifically for Ask Me Anything where someone with a somewhat unique experience or story will start a question and answer session with I Am a someone with something. Ask Me Anthything. Examples include:

• IAmA guy who was an exchange student in Japan when I was 15. I knew no Japanese. AMA
• As requested, IAmA Detective --Yes, they take and encourage requests.
• IAMA co-manager of a large Halloween store, AMA

I don't always find these topics very interesting, but they can be pretty active. It looked like fun. The reason I mentioned Reddit at all was that I recently hosted my own AMA. There are many things that are unique about me, but seeing as how October is SIDS, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month... Let's talk about this some more.

I Am a Father Whose Firstborn Son Died of SIDS. Feel Free to Ask Me Anything

I wanted to share a link to the thread here so that you could read along and see the questions and comments. I got a lot of really good questions, some of them that were emotionally difficult to answer, but I did my best. The first thing you will notice is a huge block of text where I recount the day that it happened. About halfway through, someone asked me what the circumstances were of finding Lucas' body. I thought that might come up, but when it did I realized I've never typed out the whole story. So, I did. And so you here you have it, 2703 words later.

It was very cathartic to type this all and to answer questions and respond to comments. It wasn't the most popular IAmA by a long shot. But there are a total of 123 comments, about half of which are me answering the random strangers. Here are a few of the gems:

…Thank you for your courage to relive this experience once again. It has been very useful -and I'm sure that I can say this for others as well, a very powerful way of bringing awareness on SIDS for people that have little kids and also for those who plan to have them.…

…I'm gonna sign off reddit for the night and go hug my 6 month old. Thank you for making me think to do that. I am so sorry.…

…My parents' firstborn son also died of SIDS in 1984. Everyday I think of how my life would have been different had my brother had lived. I never knew him, but every year on his birthday I bring flowers to his grave.…

That's just a few, but the whole series of posts and comments is available if you want to take a look. I'll most likely copy & paste the full story here on my blog in the next few days just because I want to keep it archived in case Reddit ever explodes.

Let me add that Reddit is not for everyone! It's a bit snarky, cynical, rude and preachingly atheistic at times. But their heart is in the right place and at least in the case of this particular thread, these folks were at their best.