Celebrate Quinncidence Year 7

Some of you have been following us since the beginning of the blog, some of you are new so I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you about another huge part of our story. March 12 of 2012 our first daughter, Quinn, was born. She was amazing and it was a time full of giddiness and gratefulness for answered prayers, but we were also trying to navigate through this new parent business, so it was also hard. On July 21st, at 4 1/2 months old, she passed away of SIDS. One moment we were putting her to bed, 45 minutes later we were in an emergency room having to say our goodbyes. A part of our lives ended that day and to say we were devastated doesn't begin to describe what we experienced those first few years. So when what would have been Quinn's first birthday rolled around, we really struggled with how to approach this hard day. One night I told Tim that I think the only way we could make it through the day is by not making about ourselves and our grief, but by helping others. What if we did random acts of kindness and took the money we would have spent on cake, balloons, and birthday gifts and spend it on others all in our daughter's name? One of my biggest fears was that because she was only on this earth for less than 5 months, people would forget about her. I never wanted her to be forgotten. So this was a way to remember her each year. It was one way I could keep her memory alive. So we called it Celebrate Quinncidence and invited our friends and family to join us, knowing that they were grieving too. I also prayed about it and decided to be vulnerable with this precious part of our journey so I invited my high school students at Washington High School to join me in random acts of kindness. I wanted my students to learn something more valuable than anything I could teach them in the classroom... that life gives us really hard things, most of them we can't control. And I think we get so hung up on the hard things that it's paralyzing. But see, we have it all wrong, the heart of the story isn't about the struggles, it's about what we choose to do with them. And that first year was beyond anything that I could have ever dreamed. The way my daughter was honored all over my school, my city, my hometown, and so so many random places around the world was breathtaking. We have continued to do it every year. This year would have been Quinn's 7th birthday and we would continue to be honored if you joined us. Take this week to pray about who you can bless. That God would bring someone into your path that needs something that they can't repay you for. And that you would be bold enough to say, "yes".