Life & Legacy

Life can be piercing. Yesterday was filled with emotion from every possible range: the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, every kind, but pain was most prevalent. My sweet friends buried their eight year old son, Robert.

His life here was filled with more adversity than many people’s lives combined. In his too short time, he battled from birth with half a heart and later took on cancer, chemo and several surgeries in addition to physical therapy to eat, walk, and speak.

Despite these unseemly setbacks, he changed people with a smile, a deep, gutsy laugh, a mischievous spirit, fighting determination and joy one would question: how could this be?

He worked a room like an ivy-league frat boy and cast a wide, bright beam of light so far and wide it was astounding.

Robert changed more lives than I could ever hope to change, in his short eight years on earth.

He called me Mary and I’d blush, not sure what that meant, but I learned yesterday, Mary was his beloved, blond nurse. He gave that name to light-haired women who reminded him of this special person.

I’m honored to be one of Robert’s “Mary’s”.

How could this young child, affect me like he has, I wonder.

Yet, I know. Everything about his life reflected all that Love is:

Jesus Christ.

What a legacy Robert leaves.

I am left with the Hope of what can be.

I ask what legacy will you leave behind?