After struggling through a respiratory infection (Renee thinks it was H1N1) which slowed his progress, Parker is doing better this week and has started up where he left off.He has been getting on all fours and crawling around, not coordinated but moving each member to take him forward.
Because he was ill we decided not to attend any therapies scheduled for the week and it was somewhat of a break for Renee to not constantly be running from one place to the next.
This was a challenging emotional week for us. We have been following the progress of a little girl named Olivia. She was born a month ago and had a condition known as trisomy 18. Her father is my sister-in-law Katy's older brother and they have created a blog to track her life, which, in the case of children with her condition, was not expected to be long. As we read the blog entries and saw the pictures and shared with our children her progress, we were all starting to become attached to Olivia though she was far away. The girls prayers always included "please bless baby Olivia".
I also could see that at some point this would lead inevitably to sorrow. That as we thought of this family, as we started to love this child and pray for her and her parents, that this would mean that we would mourn her passing, and this was a very frightening prospect to me.
Despite this, we persisted on with our prayers and every morning the girls would query and we would open up the blog and see small signs of progress, some signs of digression, but an overwhelming and universal sense of love. Yet I wondered what would happen when Olivia's time on earth would be over and how my family would react.
Katy informed us this afternoon that Olivia had passed away. I shed a good many tears, as did Renee.
Hannah, in her perfect and pure faith included in her prayer tonight, "Please bless baby Olivia that she can get resurrected".
As Abby has been preparing for her baptism this Sunday I have thought much about a specific scripture that speaks of the qualification to be part of the fold of God "...and are willing to mourn with those that mourn... and comfort those that stand in need of comfort..."
Today we mourn with Pam and Trevor for the loss of their daughter. Though I do believe that Hannah's prayer will ultimately come true and Olivia and other children like her will one day be resurrected, for a time we cannot see them, hear them, hold them, or watch them grow. I can only imagine how difficult that must be.
