How We Help

I've been stewing over this for months almost.  How do I give back to the people that helped us so much through Aaron's birth and death?  How do I contribute to a hospital that bent over backwards for us and then didn't charge us a dime -- I probably haven't said that before.  We've gotten bills from other people but the hospital itself wrote off Aaron's account after filing it with insurance.  And his 6 days in the hospital cost about $75,000.  Such a blessing for us but such an amazing thing for them to do.

Anyway, I try to serve when I can and help ladies in our ward with meals, babysitting, etc. but I've wanted to do more.  Chopper and I have talked a lot about different things we could do donations-wise like giving the money we would have spent on presents every year to the hospital or paying for a missionary in memory of Aaron's 18th birthday (because we would have anyway!).  But I feel compelled to do something now and I think that I've hit on an idea but I don't know how to implement it.

Through everything that we went through, people wanted to help so much.  But other than prayer, there wasn't really a lot that could be done.  Our ward provided a freezer full of meals and delivered meals the nights we were in the hospital.  I had fantastic friends take my kids for me when I needed them to be taken care of and it was all a huge help and a huge blessing to us.

But once everything was done and it was just grief left, there wasn't anything anyone could really do.

I laugh about it though.  As much time as we spent crying in that hospital, the one thing we needed that the hospital did not have was decent tissues!!  It was all those little boxes of medical grade crap that will tear your eyes and nose up after 2 uses.

So last night it occurred to me: a fundraiser for tissue boxes!!  Or even better, get the corporation involved and get specially designed boxes that when purchased allow a portion of the proceeds to go not necessarily to funding research (although that's important) but to supporting families who are going through these medical crises with their children and then who lose them.

There is an organization out there called Newborns in Need that makes quilts and layettes for the burial of babies and I've thought about getting involved in that too but I keep coming back to this whole tissue thing.  Even now I go through so many boxes of tissues because I just cry way more than I ever have.  I've got to think about this -- I really do.  It is heavily on my mind and in my heart.