Listen to this father's lullaby to his dying newborn son
After Chris Picco's wife, Ashley, died in her sleep Nov. 8, their son, Lennon, was born at 24 weeks via emergency C-section. As Lennon fought for his life inside of a Southern California NICU, Chris remembered something Ashley had said: Whenever they would listen to music together, the baby would move inside of her.
"I thought, 'I'm going to get my guitar,'" Picco told KABC. "Ashley would want me to sing to my son and play to my son." Picco spent two days by Lennon's side, he said, crying as he sang and played. A friend shot video of Picco singing "Blackbird" by The Beatles, a song Picco loves and hoped "might trigger something" in his baby.
Lennon survived for four days. Picco gave his blessing for the video to be released in order to help other parents experiencing grief know they are not alone. "Your whole life just changes in a moment," he said. "I knew that was going to happen with the birth of my son, I just didn't think it was going to be this soon." --Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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