Last week someone asked me, what surprised you about becoming a mother? I didn’t have a very good response.
If I had to answer over again, I would say, I became forever connected to every other mother on the planet.
I imagine you feel the same way.
Since I first wrote about Florence more than two years ago, I’ve been awed by how many of you have quietly followed her story. How many have sent wishes and thoughts and prayers for a little girl you never met; a family you don’t know. How many of you have reached out through words or notes of kindness, have emailed, have left comments on their Facebook page, have posted yourselves, have donated money, have hoped against all hope for the transplant to work, the stem cells to grow, the evil unnamed disease inside her to disappear into nothingness.
It seems implausible that strangers on the internet do this for strangers. But they do. We see it time and again.
It’s because we are not strangers. We are mothers. And another mother’s pain is our pain. Another mother’s loss is our loss.
I’m sad to say that Florence died last night. She was six years old.
