Update 2008:

CHERUBS is back full force. We are so busy doing so many things that it's exhausting most days. We have a new web site, over 2200 members, a conference planned, several awareness events planned, fundraisers, new logos, new volunteers and a research site underway. I love my work with this wonderful organization.



CHERUBS is now 13 years old... twice as old as Shane was when he died. There are still bad days when I miss him so much I can barely breathe. I dream about him often and it helps so much to spend time with him and to feel like I've held him, if only in my dreams for a little while.

Life has gone on, though there were days I didn't think it would. There were days I didn't think it should. But I am happy again, when I didn't think it was possible. It's happiness without the innocence that I had before I lost my son, before I lost my sister, my grandfather/father figure, other family members, my husband through divorce, my home through divorce.... add in a broken engagement and losing another little boy that I helped to raise for 2 years through that break-up, plus attacks and slander and lies from someone determined on destroying CHERUBS out of petty jealousy and all the hell that that entailed, and the man I was dating last year was killed on patrol as a Durham policeman... it's been a lot to deal with and overcome on top of all that CDH threw at us and losing Shane. I haven't always given CHERUBS as much time as I've wanted to the past few years because I've been busy going through hell and back. But hell is over and I survived and I am happy. It's a new kind of happiness. But it's still happiness. I still run my web design company and I am in an incredible relationship with the most amazing man who couldn't be more supportive of CHERUBS and my son's memory if he was Shane's biological dad. He has twin sons that I adore and I feel so blessed to have all 3 of them in my life. I look at the boys skateboarding, both 12 yrs old, and I can't help but wonder what it would be like to see a 15-yr-old Shane skateboarding with them. I will always wonder, but I accept that wondering now. I know that right now, I am where God wants me to be, doing the work that He wants me to while He is taking care of my son. There is so much peace in that.

CHERUBS... wow, how we've grown and what we've been through! The amazing friends I've made through CHERUBS have given me so much. Driving 100's of miles when Shane died just to be with me. Holding me up through grief. Listening to me cry when my life was a mess and I didn't know how I'd make it through. Rallying around me during drama and showing what a support group is really about. And look at us... some of us friends for over a decade now, making new friends every day. Working together with the whole CDH community to bring support, awareness and research to Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. I look back 15 years ago at that scared 19 year old kid and all the things that have happened in the past 15 years for all of us.... I am blessed. With the time I had with my son. With my faith. With CHERUBS. With the work that I do. With the friends I have made. With my wonderful family. With the love of my life as my best friend. Life has been hard at times, but through it all, I have been blessed.