Parenting's Gamble

Last June, I started using an online social networking engine. In less than a year, I've connected with over one hundred people I'd love to chat with at a reunion but for whom I would otherwise not have gone out of my way to contact. The list includes peers from college, high school, overnight camp, middle school and elementary school. I've even connected with three women with whom I once shared an adolescent romance: My first kiss, my Senior Prom date, and one more: Lori. And before any of you get worried ... both Amelia and I are comfortable with such connections in the tame, non-invasive world of online social networking.

I have found a strong basis of friendship is shared experience. With most of the people with whom I connect online from my distant past, I share both a formative window of life from years ago, as well as the current experience of being a parent. Of course, parenting experiences vary widely. With Lori, her parenting experience has proven to be very, very different from mine. Like me, she's happily married to a spouse who adores her and she has two lovely children. However, both of my children are in near perfect health, whereas Lori's younger daughter Gretchen has the worst childhood illness I have ever learned about.

Since connecting with Lori online this past summer, I have been able to do a lot of reading about Gretchen's illness. It hasn't just been the descriptions on medical information websites. Lori journals online about Gretchen's ups and downs. The journaling keeps Lori's social network wide and well informed, and I am sure it also serves Lori as an outlet of relief to simply write. During the summer of 2008, I skimmed through roughly one thousand journal entries written over a five year span. It was like drinking from a fire hose. It was nearly impossible to conceive of Lori's day-to-day or month-to-month life.

Since then, I've been reading each of Lori's newly posted journal entries in near real time and the picture of Lori's life with a medically-fragile child has become more clear. But it is one of those situations in which the more I know, the more I realize I do not know. Lori's online peers want to give encouragement, but we don't always know how. Many people post short, kind notes as comments to Lori's journal entries to tell her they are praying or thinking kind thoughts. I send a medium-sized note about once every five or six weeks with the hopes I can deliver something unique enough to add value on top of what she is already receiving.

My 9-year-old daughter Chloe has developed an interest in Gretchen and her circumstances. Chloe looks over my shoulder when I read Lori's journal entries and asks me what is going on with Gretchen's health. Recently Gretchen's health took a difficult downward turn from which she is fortunately now recovering. But on the day of the first and second journal entry to report the downturn. things looked particularly stark. The following morning I woke up an hour before the alarm went off and wondered about Gretchen. I checked for a journal entry online and it woke Chloe. "Daddy, may I have a morning snuggle?" Chloe asked through her blurry mask of blond bed-head.

She quietly joined me in the "big bed" without waking Amelia. Chloe used my shoulder as a pillow, pressed her spine firmly against my side and held my wrist in both arms like it was a stuffed animal. Soon she was breathing as only a comfortably sleeping child breathes. Chloe's health was undeniable. I could smell it, feel it, hear it and see it. I rested there in the bed and wondered what it would be like for it to be my daughter whose life was hanging in the balance. Could Amelia and I endure as Lori and her spouse do day after day and month after month? There’s no way to know for certain, of course. But I believe the answer would be yes.

I continued lying there listening to Chloe’s sleepy breaths and chose to savor the moments. Who can know what the next day will bring? A new, breakthrough treatment could suddenly provide a huge improvement in Gretchen’s life. Likewise, a latent gene or some kind of accident could suddenly afflict Chloe or Philip. That is parenting’s gamble. And we all willingly take that gamble.

I briefly remembered back to a time long ago when it was Lori’s head resting peacefully on my shoulder, and thought about how completely unaware we were of what the future would hold. I silently wished the best for Lori and her Gretchen. Chloe stirred and turned to face me, draping her arm across my chest. “I love you, Daddy,” she said quietly as the sunlight working its way through our shades indicated the alarm would soon go off.

“I love you too, Chloe.” And I made sure I savored every last bit of the morning snuggle.