Welcome to my Team page for the 30th annual Lauren’s Run & Picnic!
It is hard to eulogize a nine-month old. Undoubtedly, many of the adorable things we loved about Marco are just the things that most babies do. He put ridiculous things in his mouth – the phone, furniture, the edge of the carpet. He hated having his nose cleaned. He grabbed at glasses and hair like they were candy. He grinned and giggled when mom and dad came in the room.
We loved Marco even more for those little things that made him Marco. He was constantly twirling his ankles with a serious look on his face, as if he were loosening up for some future workout. He found it funny when he sneezed – it would always make him laugh. He was easily comforted and never inconsolable, and he smiled frequently with his wide-open toothless grin. If you took a toy from him, he would never cry - he would just give you a look that said, “whatever, dude,” and go on about his business.
Marco is leaving us after a very short time. He never walked and even his crawling was pretty suspect - we called his crawling attempts “skydiving” because of the way he lifted and shook all four limbs from his tummy, without moving an inch. He never said his first word – he said “Dada” all the time, but he probably never quite knew what it meant. He never got the hang of eating solid food. We’d never taught him anything or disciplined him or any of that. All of that was still in the future.
All we got to do was to hold him, and to care for him, and to love him, and just for a little while. And yet we can say without hesitation that he brought us the best year of our life. We did not understand that you could love like this before we met Marco. Marco made everything shiny. He invested every task, no matter how mundane, with purpose and meaning. And the sorrow we feel cannot overtake the joy that he brought.
