Poems offered me an anchor as I lost my son, so I shared them

Josie Glausiusz is a journalist living in Israel who writes about science and the environment for National Geographic, BBC Future, Nature and more.

In the early hours of March 23, about 12 hours before our treasured 12-year-old son died from a rare form of brain cancer, I climbed into his bed at Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, wrapped him in my arms and recited the poem “Jabberwocky”:

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / did gyre and gimble in the wabe …”