Busy October

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, with the big day of awareness falling on October 15. Last year, I asked everyone I know to light a candle in honor of Weston that day, and so many people lit candles for him. I was incredibly touched. So, heads up: October 15 is coming around again, and I'm going to ask for candles!

Also, my due date was October 26, 2012. I should have a one-year-old boy right now.

In honor of this month, there is a grief project going on where you share a photograph or topic every day that relates somehow to your child. I participated last year, and it was very cathartic. Apparently, though, October is some kind of crazy blogging month in general. Several bloggers I follow are doing 31 days of blogging about every topic under the sun.

I've decided not to participate in the same grief project this year, but I do want to attempt something special this month. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. Over the last fourteen months, I have stumbled onto many blog posts, articles, books, poems, etc. that have comforted me or otherwise resonated with me somehow. So, I am going to attempt to share one of them every day, or most days, in October. In the future, then, I'll know where to find this large collection of comfort.

Here is today's link:

Working Good

The author of this blog post is a friend from my undergraduate days. Tiffany Ann has a nine-month-old daughter, Campbell, with a chromosomal anomaly. She has endured, and will continue to endure, multiple surgeries, and there is no "cure" for her condition. Having a sick child is enough to severely stress the strongest, most faithful families. In just nine months, she has watched her baby daughter face what most of us will never have to experience in our entire lives, and she has had to divide her attention among Campbell, her three other precious children, her husband, and others.

You might be wondering how this is comforting and encouraging. If you haven't already, read the post. God has given Tiffany Ann and her family extraordinary grace and perspective to endure this marathon of a year. She is not afraid to address the incredibly difficult questions and then really sit with God and herself to find some answers.

Why is Campbell sick? Why did Weston die? Like Tiffany Ann, I believe that those questions will never be answered on this earth. Tiffany Ann reminds me that it's acceptable to not have the answers now, although I have to CONSTANTLY remind myself of that.

We are all broken people in some way. That's just part of being human in this world. Weston has been healed already, and the rest of us will follow. In the meantime, we broken people need each other, and that's why I'm glad to have Tiffany Ann, and countless others, in my life.