giulia12 💚

Oil prices in freefall.

Private sector employment up 86,000 jobs in October, earnings growth highest in two years: report justthenews.com/node/194530?…

C.S. Lewis said: “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.” The price of love is loss. The greater the love, the deeper the grief. You don’t get one without the other. And yet, when I read that, I asked myself, When did I agree to this? No one tells you that this is part of it. No one warns you that loving deeply means, one day, you may grieve just as deeply. No one hands you a contract that says: “This will be worth it, but it will also break you.” That the same heart capable of holding immeasurable joy will one day have to hold unbearable sorrow. And yet, here we are. It’s easy to resent that. To wish it away. To long for a life untouched by loss. But if given the choice, would I undo it? Would I erase the love just to escape the pain? The answer is always no. Because grief isn’t just pain; it’s proof. Proof that something beautiful existed. That we were given something worth missing. That it was worth it. Even knowing how it ends. Even knowing how much it hurts. It doesn’t make it easier. But it reframes it. Because if grief is the price of love, then it means we had something worth grieving. So, on the hard days, you must remind yourself: You wouldn’t trade the love to escape the grief. You wouldn’t erase the happiness to avoid the pain. And you will endure a lifetime of missing, for the privilege of having loved. I guess that’s the deal.

For the last 9-months, my wife, Brooklyn has been pregnant with a very sick baby boy. Three or four months ago, we learned that the baby had severe hydrocephalus. Back in the old days, hydrocephalus was called, 'water on the brain' - too much brain fluid. Ultimately, we were referred to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where we were told by several of the most highly regarded fetal specialists in the country that his condition was dire. The baby's condition was 'off the charts bad'. It was so extreme that the specialists stopped measuring and monitoring his fluid level because, at that point, it didn't really matter. The MRI's were sickening to look at. We were told, pointblank, that there was over a 90% chance that the baby would either die shortly after birth or have such severe cognitive impairments that any quality of life would be hard to imagine. We had a meeting with palliative care regarding the use of life sustaining measures and had detailed, awful, and emotional discussions about the ethics of when we might need to remove or cease such measures - which would result in the baby 'passing away peacefully'. Brooklyn relocated to Cincinnati and lived in a hotel close to the hospital - in case she went into labor. I commuted back and forth. On July 8th, Brooklyn did indeed go into labor. Literally, 15 minutes before they wheeled her back to start the C-section, we had another meeting with doctors regarding the use of a breathing tube and at what point we might need to remove that tube and let the baby go to Heaven. Guess what? The baby came out crying - which was the sweetest sound I ever heard. In a nutshell, Charlie Schnarr stayed in infant intensive care until yesterday - when we all came home. He seems to be a normal, beautiful baby doing all the things that babies do. He has mild ventricular enlargement, but we can deal with that with checkups. How did this happen?! The doctors said, 'We do not have and cannot come up with a medical explanation for what we've witnessed here'. Somehow his brain found a way to naturally clear the blockage or re-route the fluid that was causing the oppressive back up of brain fluid. During the last week, I heard the words, 'divine intervention' and 'miracle' more times than I could count. Nurses with decades of experience and esteemed, nationally admired doctors were flabbergasted but jubilant. Because of the domino effect of friends, family, clients, colleagues and even strangers praying and asking others to pray for us, I do not doubt that there were thousands of people praying for us. I'm a practical person that certainly believes in science and medical technology, but I absolutely know, from the bottom of my heart, that God was involved in this. I give ALL of the credit and glory to Him. Prayer is positively powerful. God is real, and He still performs miracles." 📷: Nick Schnarr