I grappled back and forth trying to decide what to write about this week. I had a few time management and inbox organization posts ready to go. Riveting, I know. Try to control your excitement.

As riveting as they were, none of them felt right after the week I had.

The truth is, when I decide what to write each week, my only strategy is to write about what is true and real for me, and what has come up in my life in any particular week. The hope is that my observations, triumphs, tribulations, and overall experiences will lend themselves to your own, either helping to shed light on something you may have needed clarity or guidance on, or simply just providing another point of view on something you already knew to be true.

I know that’s how it works for me when I read other blogs, posts, articles and books. I collect information, store away what is useful, and discard the rest.

But this week was heavy. By the time Sunday rolled around, I felt like I had waged war and come out the other side – alive – but seriously wounded.

I debated whether I should write about it or not because, quite frankly, it was just so intense and incredibly private. I wasn’t sure it would be appropriate.

But if I chose to write about anything else, the authenticity that I am committed to bringing to you with every post would cease to exist. And I am nothing if not honest, sometimes even to a fault.

So with that fault in my stars, I will tell you the story of my week, in hopes that somehow, by writing it down, I can begin to make sense of it, to pick up the pieces of my aching heart, and figure out how to move forward. But also, of course, in hopes that perhaps you might get something out of it too.

For starters, you must know that I am not in any physical ailment or harm. My marriage is flourishing, my family is wonderful, and my life is better than I could ask for. And my friends? Well, they are great too. With one exception.

Monday night, I got a text that made my heart jump into my throat and changed me forever.

A friend of mine from back home let me know that, at almost 8 months pregnant, she experienced a cramp she thought was from nothing more than gluten intolerance (she had too much bread earlier that evening). When nothing would help ease the discomfort, she and her husband went to the hospital. Because she was pregnant, the doctors wanted to check the baby’s heart beat to make sure the cramp didn’t have anything to do with the baby.

Unfortunately, it did.

The cramp turned out to be a blood clot that caused the placenta to tear away from the uterus by 90%. So when the doctors went to take the baby’s heart rate and couldn’t find it, they did an emergency C section. Baby Hugo came out perfect – with all his fingers and toes and organs in tact. Unfortunately, he had no brain activity whatsoever. The torn placenta had cut off oxygen to baby Hugo’s brain.

Devastated, somehow, my friend had the wherewithal (and strength) to send me that fateful text message the evening after the incident. Hugo was alive on a respirator, she said, but they would be turning it off soon. She wanted to keep me posted, and to let me know that though they were heart broken, she and her husband were grateful to be able to have time with him, to hold him, to talk to him, to love him.

“He is adorable,” she wrote to me. “He is so little and amazing and we are lucky to have this time with him.”

That was about the time when I burst out into tears. And I couldn’t stop.

I barely slept a wink that night, my cell next to my ear, at the ready to jump on the phone if she needed me.

By the time I woke up (for what seemed liked the 15th time in 7 hours), I got the text I was hoping a miracle would stop from coming: after surviving on a respirator for just over 24 hours, baby Hugo slipped away in his mother’s arms at 2:30am. That was last Tuesday.

Looking and feeling like the worst possible version of myself, with bags under my eyes, my clothing disheveled, and my hair looking like I had stuck my finger in an electrical outlet, I jumped at the opportunity to video chat with my friend. Stoic and strong, she was composed and lovely. We cried together as she gave me the play by play of the previous 48 hours. Not knowing how to end the conversation (and not wanting to let her go), I was grateful that a dropped Skype connection did it for us. A text a few minutes later let me know that she had company now, and would call back later.

I spent the week with a heavy heart, not sleeping, checking in on her multiple times a day, wondering if I should jump on a plane to be with her, crying at random moments, feeling angry and sad most of the time, and guilty whenever there was an instant – a mere moment – that I felt any kind of happiness. Guilty for forgetting the pain that now existed in my friend’s world. Pain that I would never be able to take away, not with a call, not with flowers, not with a hug, not with all the love in the world. There will forever be a hole in her heart, and though she vowed she will move on, she will be marked by this experience for the rest of her life.

And so this week, I don’t have a list for you. I don’t have a list of things for you to send to someone who is going through an unspeakable tragedy (though I sent an edible arrangements bouquet which was well received, if you’re looking for a suggestion). I don’t have a list of ways to make people feel better when their world is falling apart around them.

What I do have is a story of hope. Because through her pain, my friend was able to pull herself together, to write a letter to her son, and to make sense of the tragedy in such a way as to inspire everyone to live their lives to the fullest, to say I love you more often, to appreciate every moment, every breath, every opportunity, every hug, every friend, every everything.

Read her letter to Hugo here.

And whatever you do today, make sure you tell the ones you love how much you love them. Squeeze them tight, forgive them their faults and love them because of them.

Let this be not only today’s reminder of how precious life is, but also, how lucky you are to have been born to experience it in the first place.

Thank you for listening.

With so much love and gratitude for your time,

Lauren
xxx