Please note: If this is your first time visiting our blog, please click here to hear the premise of Pass It On, Baby! and how it all began.... Pass It On, Baby!
How I do I begin this blog? How do I tell each and every one of you thank you for spreading the word, sending people our way, sending us heart-warming messages and truly caring? On the flip side, how do I share with all those how badly people are hurting right now. Not to make you feel badly, but just so you know....because we all should be aware.
These days, every day brings some notes filled with sadness intermixed with many wanting to ease the burdens where they can. There are some mornings that I don't want to respond, because it seems uncertain that we will be able to get ALL these kiddos matched up. And it worries and saddens me...
It's strange in a way because most days when I read these notes, I can FEEL the hopelessness, the desperation, the fear in people's voices that we hear from. Many of them are at the end of their ropes. And in many ways, it weighs on me and I'm sure Heather as well. It reminds me of a conversation that I had years ago with a dear friend who felt that she was called to volunteer in a pediatric cancer ward. It was nothing that she ever bragged about, but something that she shared when I was dealing with my second son being hospitalized for the second time with the RSV virus. They had run out of rooms on the floor that he should have been placed on and so they had moved him to the floor where many of the longer-term children with life-threatening illnesses were. I can still recall walking the hospital floors with a sick feeling in my stomach, very confident that my son would be leaving and recovering and that many would not. It felt awful. And so in talking with her about the feelings, she shared that she volunteered at a similar ward. I was floored. I immediately protested and asked her how she was able to do it....to not cry constantly while she was among the children and the parents, how she left it at the hospital and didn't bring it home with her, how it didn't scare her to have children knowing they could get sick too.... She was quiet, and simply responded, "If I didn't do it, who would?"
Now, that's not to say that there are MANY, MANY people out there doing good and helping along children and moms just like us, but the statement gives me a lot of power and strength to refocus and deal.
And, let me take a moment in the same breath to talk to those that are struggling. I KNOW that when you have no money and bill collectors are calling, kids need stuff that you can't imagine how you are going to afford, choices being made between food and bills and that there is not even any money left over for fun that it seems hopeless. That is seems unfair. That getting up the next morning is a struggle. But it's for a purpose. While you are going to work day after day trying to make ends meet, little eyes are watching you. Knowing that you are doing your damndest to make sure that they don't do without, even if it means that you do. That there is a point to this existence, and even if it seems that your burdens are too much to bear, that you need to keep going and still find a way to look at the positive. If your children are doing without and so are you, it still might be worse. If they are healthy, there is your positive. Every rich mother in a hospital praying for her child's life would switch places with you in a minute, no questions asked.
On the flip side, and PLEASE don't take this as judgment....those that have enough, can you make a small sacrifice to help someone directly? If you drink Starbucks once or twice a week, can you make that sacrifice for a few weeks to influence a child's life? You too have little eyes watching. Our children become, in many ways, what we give them the opportunity to become.
You know we all get so wrapped up in pursuit of this nice life. The nice house, the perfect decorations, the kids dressed so cute....but if you turn your back to your fellow man, is it worth it? If you sacrifice yourself in the midst of the accumulation of all this stuff, what's it for?
I do not sit in judgment of anyone, because I have been the mom who thinks I've done enough, I need to worry about my own kids now or my own family. The truth is, when I say that statement and think about the people that have affected the world the most: Jesus, Mother Teresa, Buddha, Ghandi, St. Francis of Assisi, etc...(take your pick)..I am embarrassed, because that is certainly not what we are really supposed to be doing. We are supposed to help until it feels inconvenient or uncomfortable. We are supposed to help however you can, in any way you can.
So....Heather and I are doing our best. Most days. Like everyone, we have days where we aren't sure in which way to head, and days where it seems impossible. But for each of us as a member of this community -- if we don't, who will?
Many more than you imagine are in need. We have received requests in the last few weeks that rival our entire requests from the prior year. Times are hard, and many are feeling the pinch in ways you probably can't imagine....Search your heart. How can you help? Can you directly? Can you reach out to someone else? Do you know someone who has a company and is planning on adopting families for Christmas - would they consider Pass It On, Baby? Have you thought of something that we haven't?
But most of all....get down to the level we all used to be at. When we were all little and someone in preschool had many cookies and another had none, what were we taught? We were told to share, to spread kindness, to ease sadness.....sometimes we forget that simple lesson on how the world works best.
In love and kindness,
Email Elizabeth & Heather
