being aware

Today is the International Day of Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness.  If you're here reading this, it is likely you are already well aware of the defect, but I felt like today shouldn't go unacknowledged.  The CHERUBS organization works hard to raise awareness, promote research, and provide support to families affected by CDH, and CHERUBS volunteers have been working especially hard at creating a special day of awareness.

Our little Mia is a daily reminder that life is fragile and we should be grateful for each breath we are allowed to take.  Since her birth, I find myself much more sensitive to the plights of parents with sick children of all kinds - children with cancer, children with congenital heart defects, children with any illness that threatens their life and health - I feel like I have only had a small taste of what those parents must endure.  And the thought of children suffering through treatments, facing death head on, enduring so much pain...well, it just hits a little closer to home now.  I think the hardest part is feeling so very small, like there is nothing I can do to make it better.

Sometimes, no, often, life gets hard.  But this morning, as I strapped Mia into her car seat and she was just grinning cheek to chubby cheek (because that's what she does most of the time), I couldn't help but think, "It could be so much harder."

Finding a cause for CDH, improving treatments, understanding the defect - those things all cost money.  Learning to appreciate each breath, holding your children a little closer, stopping a minute to enjoy an innocent smile - those things are free.  Tonight, as I sit listening to my baby girl make sleepy noises, I feel like CDH may have been a small gift.  Not a gift I would have asked for, or even greeted with opened arms, but something that has shaped our little family into something better than it was before.