The Layla Grace Story

Written by Layla's father (Before Layla's passing):

Layla is a tough little girl, it goes without saying. Her positive attitude is something that astounds and blesses us regularly. We place ourselves in her shoes and think, would I remain as positive as she does while being as miserable as she feels? Sometimes we see something that makes us feel sympathy for others. I received an email from my mother this morning including pictures of a little boy that had prosthetic legs. He was happy and playing in all of the pictures. We look at people like him, or like Layla and for a moment we feel grateful for what we have and suddenly our problems dont seem so large in comparison. But does that gratefulness persist in our hearts?

Much of how we react to the things that happen in our lives is based upon our perspective. The angle we are looking at them from, physically where we stand. To wake up every morning and feel grateful for our blessings requires that we know what it is like to not have them, to have stood for a time in a place without those blessings and to feel the difference in a real way.

My first lesson in gratefulness came to me upon returning from Iraq and opening a fridge full of food. To Americans, what else would be in there but food? But to Iraqis, the vast majority of them never had more than a day or two worth of food in their home. In fact most of them had bare walls, no appliances, and not even good drinking water and sewage. It was a hell hole, but millions of people were born, grew up, fell in love and had families that did it all over again and they knew nothing of how we live. They had nothing like we have. The Iraqi men I took into Saddams palace cried when they saw it. Upon closer inspection the palaces arent really that spectacular. Certainly not any nicer than the hotel you probably stayed in on your honeymoon.

It took me physically living in another country for a year to really truly feel grateful for a fridge full of food. How simple minded and selfish of me to have lived my life completely oblivious to an amazing blessing that most of the 6 billion people on this earth live without.

In the same way Layla has taught us to love and be patient. Shanna and I used to lay awake at night and talk about Byson, our friends son who has Mitochondrial disease and has lived his entire four years in and out of surgery and the ICU. What a blessing to have healthy children, we used to say. Now we are there, with Layla, and we say Lord what a blessing to have a daughter at all!. My daughters are my deepest love and yet Layla has taught me so much more about love. I thought, coming home from war, that I knew what it meant to be tough. Now I know what tough is. Tough is a 2 year old that knows little more about life than cancer and chemo, throwing up several times a day, being miserable and sick and needing blood transfusions, being hungry and wanting to eat but having mouth sores so painful she cant even drink water, getting poked and prodded and living in a hospital room, unexpected visits to the ER in the middle of the night, having tubes that come out of her chest and wondering where Daddys wires are. Doesnt everyone have those? Isnt this what life is for everyone? No, its not Layla, its not at all. Its your life, and you embrace it and live it with a smile and a laugh and an infectiously happy spirit every day that just floors us. She is an inspiration to us. I look forward to a day in 2016 when she is 9 because I will take that little girl to see the Olympics in Rio, and I look forward to a day when she is graduating from high school and going off to college and the world beyond. On that day we will pull out a little scrapbook again and show her just how strong of a little girl she is and how nothing that this world throws at her can get her down.

We all love Layla so much. God loves little bitty Layla Grace and the example of humble gratefulness we see every single day shes here sharing life with us. And you know what? He loves you the same way too