It's been a rough 6 months in my little corner of Texas. I've been hospitalized five times for pneumonia, two of my friends (spouses) died 17 days apart. Both were traumatic, unexpected and just plain sucked. I live 800 miles from them, so I missed both funerals, which broke my heart.
When I got released from the hospital last week, my BFF/cousin texted me that she was about to be admitted to a hospital in the town she lives in. She was 25 weeks pregnant with my nephew (her kids call me Auntie Em) and the baby had just been diagnosed with something called fetal hydrops, which is a very serious and usually fatal.
John Edgar Brooks was delivery through an emergency csection at the exact stroke of midnight on August 10 and passed away shortly thereafter. His few minutes on earth were damn good ones, being snuggled with his dad until he passed away, wrapped in love.
Between the three deaths an five bouts of double pneumonia, I'm … numb. So much death. So much pain, both mental and physically. I felt horrible about not being able to fly to my cousin's house to help out like I wanted to, but my lungs are still rebounding from the last bout of pneumonia.
I recently stumbled onto a website called One Simple Wish, which provides wishes from kids in foster care. It's a website I visit occasionally, but had never donated to before.
This evening I was scrolling through their website and one wish caught my attention… An 8 year old boy's request caught my attention. His request was for a day at LegoLand with his friends to celebrate his birthday. He had never had a birthday party before. I scrolled past it, even went to use a couple more apps in my phone, but I kept returning to the request.
So I granted his wish.
I feel much happier now, knowing that I could help someone, even if it wasn't my friends or my nephew. I made a difference to one child's life.
And that made me smile, really smile, for the first time in many weeks.
Hey Evan, I hope you have the best birthday ever.
In honor of:
