Here. Now.

The world of Mommy Bloggers is so sad right now.

I don’t know these people. I read their lives anonymously via the Internet, just as I suspect one or two people may read mine. I lurk around and read their stories – good times and bad – and feel more complete and justified with my life.

The choices I make. The choices I don’t make. The problems I just ignore and put back on the shelf until I feel like I can deal with them again.

To read these stories in a circumspect way makes me not feel so alone in the joy and woe of being a parent. It makes me feel connected to them and to this web-based world.

Then night fell on what I thought was a huge, monstrous web of people, and I am realizing how small and close knit Mommy Bloggers really are, which I suppose is part of the success of it.

I don’t know Maddie. I don’t know her family. To be honest, I had never read The Sphors are Multiplying. But all of a sudden the world went purple. People that I had never connected to in the world of Mommy Blogging all turned their Twitter avatars purple to show their sorrow over the loss of Maddie.

My favorite bloggers all wrote soul crushing posts about her loss. Their own loss.

And I cried.

Then another blogger lost their son.

Now another blogger, one that I adore, has a child in the hospital.

So I cried.

Parent’s don’t want to think about the death as it applies to children, especially their own children. It shakes me to my core to even fathom the idea, so I push it from my head.

And I cried.

I know there is a chance I will have to face challenges with Grace. I pray constantly that I won’t have to teach her about carbs, how to give shots, how to check her blood sugar.

But those challenges would be embraced with open arms over not have the opportunity to teach her anything ever again.