Light

As I never fail to remind you all, I’ve had a crushingly bad couple of weeks and as a result have been a negligent blogger. Short, dismal posts, and little to no blog-visiting. My title as Mother’Hood Tour Guide, Cheerleader and Welcome Wagon has been undeserved these past couple of weeks. But although things are still challenging on the home front (most recently, a car accident has put me on Percocet), I can say, without a moment’s hesitation, that my heart is much, much lighter now.

It’s lighter, in part, because I needed to shake off the gloom, for my family’s sake and my own, and took steps to do so. But it’s also lighter because so many lovely, lovely souls have been beaming great rays of love and happiness at me and I could no more resist the consequent warming and lightening of my heart than turn myself into a stone.

My dear friend and momosphere goddess Kristen telephoned me this past Friday to tell me that she and Julie (also a dear friend and decidedly goddess-like), with the help of a host of other folks with big, big hearts (see full list here), had come up with a crazy, wonderful, spectacular idea to lift Her Bad Spirits and make the world a better place: they would do something for Tanner. Something wonderful. Something that demonstrates how people with big hearts and determination can move mountains. Or, at least, raise money for a very important cause and make a sick little boy very, very happy.

They put together a raffle-auction, to benefit Tanner, to raise funds to be donated to MD Canada, in his name. And they’re soliciting letters, too: they’re asking parents to ask their children to send a card, a note, a drawing, a piece of cheer to brighten the life of a boy who has struggled with being different, with being marked as different because he has a disorder that is crippling him and that

will, one day, kill him. They were doing all this Tanner. And for me, because they know how much I love Tanner, and how very much I wish for happiness in his short life.

I’ve written about Tanner here before. I’ve written about him on my home blog. I struggle with writing about him, because it hurts my heart, sometimes, to write about his illness, his disability, the inevitable brevity of his sweet life. In writing about him, I calm, in some small measure, the trembling part of my soul that holds fear and pain on his behalf. But what I’ve learned this week is this: in writing about him, I have shared him, and shared that pain and fear, and have made it possible for others to offer up supportive hands and hearts to ease that burden. And I have made it possible for others to love him, to be touched by him and his amazing life.

These wonderful, wonderful friends have taught me this lesson. It’s a precious lesson. I will be eternally grateful for this lesson, and for the gifts of charity and friendship offered to Tanner.

Go, go, see what they have done, are doing. Join in. Buy tickets. Have your children write letters. Spread the love.

And accept my heartfelt thanks. My deepest, most heart-felt thanks.

(If you’d like to steal this button, maybe to accent a blurb on your own blog about this wonderful project -hint, hint – let me know and I’ll forward you the code.)