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VIPs: Very Important Posts from February 2012

Very Important PostsBelow is a collection of posts from February that made me think long after I read them. Whether you are already acquainted with these writers or not, I encourage you to click over to see if these posts are meaningful to you, too.

The Internet at its best, entry 1: We see meanness and bullying all too often around the Internet. So when I find a story like this, I want to share it. Witness this group of women rallying around one of their own during a time of need. BernThis and 6 other bloggers made a video for their friend Ellie, who is battling Stage 4 cancer. Watch here or head to BernThis for more of the story.

Operation Spiritual Airlift from Heather King on Vimeo.

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The Internet at its best, entry 2: My friend MediaMum flew to her native Australia several times this year to be with her mom, Susan, during cancer treatments. When she let a group of her Colorado blogging friends know about her mum’s imminent passing, we mobilized to send Susan off in a wave of bright yellow, her favorite color. The result was this sunny and day-brightening #Yellow4Susan Pinterest display, courtesy more than 30 contributors.

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Jill, a birth mom who blogs at The Happiest Sad, has a fitting analogy about always being on the lookout for something that was lost to you, In her post Adoption is kind of like an Isuzu pickup, Jill says, I know I won’t see [the stolen Isuzu pickup], but I think I see it all the time. Because I don’t know what happened to it, and I don’t know where it is, and what if it’s out there somewhere and I miss if because I’m not vigilant enough? What if I stopped looking, and the next day it passed me in the street on my way to work? There is a gap in my knowledge of the Isuzu. That gap keeps me wondering…This is the benefit of openness. Roo will never have to be vigilant, on the lookout. She knows what I look like and who I am.

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In her post The “A” Word: Let’s Talk Abandonment, Rebecca from Life is Not a Pie compares abandonment to separation. Rebecca is both an adult adoptee and an adoptive mom, and she observes that, though having a highly stable childhood, she has a hard time expecting that anything will last. Is it adoption? The thing with adoption is that it can be difficult to tease out which parts are adoption-related and which parts are just life. Impermanence is part of living; the only constant, it has been said, is change.

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Lastly, former VIP LisaAnne loved a post at Enjoying the Small Things.  In the post Dance, writer Kelle attends a Valentine’s party for people with Down Syndrome, hosted by her local Civitan club. I had to find out why Kelle was at such a dance and I found the incredibly moving story of her daughter’s birth in which she shows and tells about her 2010 shocker of all shockers.

I knew the minute I saw her that she had Down Syndrome and nobody else did. I held her and cried. Cried and panned the room to meet eyes with anyone that would tell me she didn’t have it. I held her and looked at her like she wasn’t my baby and tried to take it in. And all I can remember of these moments is her face. I will never forget my daughter in my arms, opening her eyes over and over…she locked eyes with mine and stared…bore holes into my soul.

Love me. Love me. I’m not what you expected, but oh, please love me.

LisaAnne says that Kelle “has had to figure out how to go from a perfect family, to being a ‘perfect in its own way’ family. And I love that her world was turned upside down and she is figuring out how beautiful an upside down world really can be.”

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Be on the lookout for what you consider Very Important Posts during the month of March — I’d love to know your nominations for the next edition of VIPs.

5 Responses

  1. When someone is dying, so many people say they simply don’t know what to say. That’s understandable, because death is such a taboo subject. Yet the internet has given us a gift where we can share our hearts without having to find the words, face to face. And as a result, the Pinterest board you ladies created (and which now has just under 1000 followers), #yellow4susan, has touched my heart, and that of my family in a way words never could. My mum got to see about half of it before she passed away. She loved it. And now we have it forever, and it continues to grow. I can’t thank you enough.

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