A sad Christmas...

I went to the St-Justine Kids hospital this afternoon with Ocean (my oldest) to deliver Christmas stockings that he and his classmates at pre-school made for kids that were spending the christmas holidays sick in the hospital. We walked in and right away I got a small dose of what it would be like to have a child so ill that he or she would require a place like this. Don't get me wrong, the staff seems so amazing and the surroundings were kid friendly and inviting but who would want to see their child in a hospital... especially around Christmas time...

Ocean and I went upstairs to the volunteer wing and met up with some of the volunteers that were organising hundreds of gifts for kids. As I was delivering the boxes of christmas stockings a woman volunteer walked in and looked really sad. She started telling her story of what just happened in the other part of the hospital. This woman, aprox 45 years old, was called by one of the pediatric nurses to come and help this little boy, 7 months old (the age of my daughter). He had been crying all day and none of the nurses were able to help him or calm him down. The lady was apparently known in the hospital to have "the touch" when it came to children. So she went and was able to calm the baby down enough that he fell asleep in her arms, so she rocked him for a few hours... The lady wasn't sad about the little boy crying and not being able to be calmed down, she was sad cause the parents hadn't shown up to see, take care, rock, love, nurse, cherrish or hold for 4 days....

Tonight my daughter had a bit of hard time falling asleep because we have been out and about all day and didn't nap properly. So I went to her bedroom and rocked her for 30 mins and she fell asleep in my arms. I started thinking about this poor boy at the hospital.... I may not be the best mother in the world (and sometimes feel less than a great mother to my children) but I would NEVER leave my child alone at any age, especially at 7 months old, in a hospital hooked up to IVs and sick. I hold no judgement on the mother or father but I pray for their sake that something much more important had happened that prevented them from being by their child's side in the hospital. I would sleep on the floor beside that bed, walk hundreds of miles if I had no car to get to them, cancel everything in my life and not go to work even if it ment that I would be unable to pay my living in this world, to be by my child's side... regardless of what he or she had...

I ask everyone who reads this tonight to think, pray, send love, do whatever you do, to that little boy and all the kids in this world that don't have the luxury of having simple love from a mom or dad this Christmas. And at the same time lets take the time to do the same for all the kids that are sick and that may not live to see 2012.

xox

:'(