Conner

April 22, 2007 ~ February 2, 2008

Last week our family and several of our friends watched helplessly as this baby we had grown to love began to slip from this life. It is bittersweet. He is now perfect and healthy and oh-so-happy. His family, on the other hand, is obviously not.

During the funeral it was said that Conner achieved more in his short 9 months than many men achieve in 90 years. I feel quite certain that is true. Over the last several months as we have gotten to know Conner and his family, so many beautiful things have been learned. He brought out gratefulness, generosity and compassion in my children stronger than I have ever seen before. I love watching how God constantly stirs their hearts to pray for this family. Those were all things that I wanted them to experience.

But then came the things I didn’t want them to experience. Concern over a baby’s life, pain, grief … all things that, if given the choice, I very well might of protected them from. But as we sat in that funeral and I watched my children experience deep pain for someone else, I realized that the good lessons are not always the easy ones, or the ones I would have chosen. And I felt grateful, not for their pain, but for their ability to empathize with someone else’s pain. And grateful that God doesn’t leave me solely in charge of the lessons. He takes over where I am ready to bail. And then we all learn a little something.