A tragedy...

Imagine. Imagine for just a minute your worst possible fear coming true. Can words even describe how the very thought of the events at that moment make you feel? Does your vocabulary even allow you to voice your hurt or your fear or your pain? Mine does not.

For the last few years, I have followed a foundation set up due to the untimely death of a little girl Layla Grace. She lived in Houston with her family and as a baby was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a deadly and aggressive cancer. Through her foundation, I have been following a little boy’s journey as well as his family’s journey through his diagnosis and treatment of cancer. He was 4 years old when he died on Monday from it. Reading his mother’s words, I am unable to even finish a single entry without tears streaming down my face. So sad for her. So sad for her other two little boys. So sad for her husband. So sad for the little boy Ronan to have fought such a battle and to have lost and never to be a healthy ornery boy’s-boy little boy.

The story is a sad one. It’s one of many sad ones of families losing their children to childhood cancer. You may think that this is the introduction to some terrible story about our beautiful and wonderfully healthy children Caden and Keali. Of course I am happy to say that it has nothing to do with them physically. They are healthy and doing well. I can only hope they continue along that path.

However, this little boy’s story in particular has made me appreciate even more the life and health that we live. Some would probably say we are blessed, lucky, fortunate, etc. I tend to disagree with all of those. To say that means, that the other family was not blessed, not lucky, or not fortunate. Why would they be selected or “chosen” to endure any of those things? The saddest thing I have ever been through in my life was my sweet Brewskii dying. I was sad for weeks and years. Sad is inadequate. Heartbroken doesn’t fully explain it. Broken seems closer, but still not fully descriptive. What if I had to see my little baby girl or boy slowly dying before my eyes as this mother did? Although I have not personally lived through that grief, the words that come to me are hopelessly inadequate to describe how I thinkit feels. I hope I never know for sure.

I am thankful everyday that I have my husband, my kids, my parents, my brother, and more. I am not perfect and still get irritated with the kids, but this little boy’s journey has taught me to appreciate all the little things even more.