For any parent who has had their beloved child taken there are two days every year in which their emotions, their feelings, their thoughts are particularly challenging.

The first is your child’s birthday. This day is one of the greatest, most soulful days possible. You are filled with a joy, a wonder, that until that day, you could only dream about. The future is unlimited for your new child. Your family’s name will be carried on. You feel immortal. And whatever mistakes you may have made in the past, you vow that your child will not make those same mistakes. This is day one of what unconditional love looks like.

The second is the day your child is taken from you. This horrific day represents the polar opposite. A parent’s greatest fear. The one thing that fills you with unspeakable anguish. To have your child die in your arms, or while holding their hand. An anguish you never knew existed grips you. This is day one of what could turn into a dark abyss where, as a parent you painfully trudge through the remainder of your life in the shadows of despair.

Today, August 10th is the 30^th birthday of my beloved daughter, Morgan.

While she was with us, Morgan had many friends. Her personality was huge. This video, made by Highland Park Methodist Church years ago, is so representative of her:

https://www.facebook.com/hpumc/videos/10155356614162888

During Morgan’s many long years of treatment, she inspired and helped others. And now? The reality is her friends, those whom she helped, inspired laughed with, cried with, have moved on with their lives.

As well they should! 

I hope that occasionally, they embrace some loving memories of Morgan and what she meant to them, and it makes them smile. I sincerely hope that they have moved on and are leading lives filled with hope, joy, laughter and love.

Three days ago, August 7^th, was the 14^th commemoration day of when Kelly Burk was taken. A day which will forever be a personal tragedy for her parents, Nancy and Randy Burk.

Kelly’s light, her legacy, in addition to being carried in the hearts of Nancy and Randy, is also being kept vibrant through the work being done through the Something for Kelly Foundation, a foundation started by Kelly’s aunt, Patti Geolat. SFK holds an annual golf tournament in the St. Louis area organized by Kelly’s two brothers. This tournament is sold out each year well in advance of the date.

Nancy, Randy, Patti and Kelly’s siblings tell us that in life, Kelly was a force to be reckoned with. The oldest of her siblings, Kelly was the one “large and in charge.” A force of nature. Unlike Morgan, Kelly did not go to any treatment center nor receive extended care for anorexia. Kelly had a husband. A husband who woke up one dark day to find that Kelly did not wake up. Kelly was taken during the night.

But Morgan and Kelly … and so many others, are and will be forever inextricably and sadly linked.

To this end, in the eating disorder community, the harsh reality is that Morgan and Kelly are just statistics.  Long forgotten. Just two more souls whose lives were extinguished, once every 62 minutes … or under the current “leadership void” in the community, now once every 52 minutes.

Imagine being a leader in a community that while under your watch, the mortality rate worsened. The statistics worsened. More lives are being taken in greater numbers. And parents, members of this horrible club where the admission fee is paid for with the dearest blood possible cannot and should not, tolerate this.

I have been told by more than one person that they believe I want to tear down the eating disorder community. For those Social Injustice Warriors, those who place their own extreme politics above all else, those so-called advocates who are causing such tremendous harm, who are attempting to distract from helping the people who suffer the gravest from eating disorders, there is a modicum of truth to that belief.

There may have once been a time when therapy was “therapy.” Even though stigma was mighty and overwhelming, therapy was directed toward the individual and societal and cultural phenomenon were irrelevant. Pronouns and privileges were irrelevant because the person suffering from eating disorders was all that mattered.

Now, there appears to be mandatory debate and discussion of whether a counselor or patient is “cisgendered, or in a para-normative relationship; or how you are required to admit whatever “privilege” you may have and if you don’t, you are labeled a bigot; or the evils of healthism or ageism or any other type of “ism”; or the insipid, virtue signaling of pronouns; or the pedantic platitudes of militant fat activists trumpeting their own fear and self-loathing.

Morgan Claire Dunn deserves better.

Kelly Burk Knobbe deserves better.

The thousands of children who have died from anorexia nervosa deserve better.

At one time, the community may have been unified in their firm determination to better learn how to recognize eating disorders at an early stage, how best they can help those suffering from this illness and how best their lives can be saved. Now?

The divisiveness in the community is reprehensible. The in-fighting. The eating disorder community leadership has debased itself by becoming “A Cool Kids, Mean Girls Club” comprised of very far left leaning, liberal loons who turned a deadly mental illness into a social justice drum banging, political cartoon. Cowardice, backstabbing, divisiveness, ignorance of medical science and spewing falsehoods are the tools of their trade.

Morgan Claire Dunn deserves better.

Kelly Burk Knobbe deserves better.

The thousands of children who have died from anorexia nervosa deserve better.

And so, to those who are obstructionists, to those who seek to create chaos and divisiveness, to those who have wrongly been given a platform because of their one-sided, social justice and/or political positions, to those who seek to spread their extreme political views in a community which instead should be embracing the highest level of care for the treatment of eating disorders you are on notice. You will be called out. You will be exposed.

Finally, to those who may wonder or question whether Morgan would want her daddy to continue with this crusade, to use whatever meager gifts I may have to continue on this path … I know she would be hounding me mercilessly; she would be relentless in her admonitions to never give up. To be bold.

And so, as a birthday present to you my Morgan this year, I will continue to embrace my love for you in my heart, in my head, and in my soul, and I vow to not give up. Too many lives have been needlessly taken.

You deserve better from the community. All of those who have been taken deserve better. We all deserve better.

And so … “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”