Of all the tragic things that can happen to human beings, the death of one’s child must be near the top of the list. How much more tragic, then, when your child dies through misuse of a device that you yourself designed?

When I started this page it was with a tone of mockery, exemplified by the triple acrostic Icarus Dædalus Doc. The similarity to Hickory Dickory Doc will not escape readers who were told Mother Goose nursery rhymes as little children. But that substrate demanded content beyond mockery, the poem virtually wrote itself, and the illustration–executed after looking at classical images of this famous father and son–demanded the heart of the tragedy: the father watches, helplessly far away, as his child plummets to a certain doom. The child is still alive but his remaining life on Earth will not last the sweep of a second hand around a clock face. So do we all–parents, friends, lovers–so often watch as tragedy unfolds, wanting to turn back time or otherwise alter reality, but powerless; helpless.

It is the truest exemplar of what people think of as “Greek tragedy.” There is also a moral: Today may well be the day a future tragedy might be averted.

So–how are your loved ones doing? What might you do to help them, this very minute?