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"So shines a good deed in a weary world," Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice. Gene Wilder repeated it in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The line jumped out at me when I watched it for the millionth time on Sunday, reminding me of the community of parent bloggers, friends and allies who reached out this week to support two families who suffered the unthinkable loss of their babies.
The funeral of Maddie Spohr, 17-month old daughter of Heather and Mike Spohr of The Spohrs Are Multiplying and The Newborn Identity, is today in California. Thalon, the nearly 4 month old son of Shana of Gorillabuns, died this weekend.
I honestly do not know where to begin to sum up the online and in some cases very much in-person reaction from thousands of bloggers, because I know I can't, but I feel it bears mentioning. There is so much - SO MUCH - out there, a tremendous outpouring from people all over the Internet who care about these children and the people who have lost them that it's struck me silent. And while my heart and brain are full, I've been doing basically everything I can all of yesterday and today to avoid writing about the deaths of two small children, even though it was the only thing that seemed important enough to write about this week. I've watched post after post flow from the fingers of people all over this continent (and likely the world, if you've seen posts from beyond North American borders please link them in the comments.) And I've been reading them obsessively, amazed at people who can so readily find the words, at people who are responding to these losses with so much generosity and kindness, who are donating to the March of Dimes in Maddie's memory, who are traveling to California for her funeral to stand with and support her parents, who are turning their avatars and blogs purple in her memory. (Thanks much to Velma for helping me out with mine.)
Last night I ended up stuck on Bejeweled, a horribly addictive game that kills one lobe of your brain with stupidity while it frees the other one up to think about more important things, because I haven't been able to slow my brain down enough to knit this all together in a clean white text box. And after I couldn't do that anymore, I was ready to try to write about it, because even though I know for sure I can't do two baby lives and the immeasurable pain of two families justice, I need to talk about what happens when people all over the world come to care, consider themselves community, and have the technological means combined with the oh-so-human heart and spirit to do something about it.
I'm going to mostly let these people speak, but first of all, the facts, in case anyone reading missed them: Maddie died on April 8, 2009. Born 11 weeks premature two years ago, she had health issues throughout her life but had been doing well until the infection set in that took her life. Mom Heather and dad Mike wrote about their experiences parenting her, from the difficulties of prematurity and NICU to the everyday joys of watching her grow. Mike was a stay-at-home dad for much of Maddie's life. They are both on Twitter, Heather at @mamaspohr and Mike, @newbornidentity.
Shana's son, Thalon Bruce, died suddenly on Saturday.She shared the news yesterday.
There are countless communities on the Internet, with amorphous boundaries, knit loosely together in a global sense but with some of the tightest human relationships I've ever seen. The parent blogging community has been deconstructed in detail, but when it comes to losses like this, the rate and speed of organizing is remarkable. There's the ability of a stranger like myself, not a parent but certainly with the compassion for the inexplicable loss of a baby, to send a comment or an e-mail, to get sucked into the most beautiful pair of seventeen month-old eyes, and to cry for people I've never met because reading the accounts of their daughter's life are almost too much to bear. And if I feel this way? Who could imagine their grief.
In comments and on their own blogs, people reach out. And as usual anymore, Twitter is a communications hub, so intrinsic to online community building that I fail to engage
