What or Who inspires you the most?

If I had been asked this question more than 5 years ago, my answer may have included my mum, my husband, siblings, the ability humankind has to achieve things like climbing mountains, swimming the English channel, Olympic champions and many more.

Here in 2014, my first and foremost answer exceeds all of them; my daughter Lauren Birch. Born in Dec 2008, Lauren was quickly diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), and brain malformations that would leave her with physical and learning disabilities, eye sight problems and more. It’s hard to sum up in a few words what it is that she emulates and inspires in others. Perhaps Love would be a good word. She loves everyone. From her family, to the elderly asian man in asda, to her teachers and friends at church. She waves to everyone. Mostly she gets a response. She has an infectious smile and shares it with the world. She loves to be alive, to be experiencing life and all its pleasures.

She has incredible tolerance. She tolerates an imperfect mother who struggles so much to match what she needs, she tolerates illness like I’ve never known. She will literally be throwing up sometimes, but desperately at the same time try to watch her programme on T.V without missing any!! Haha!! She has so many appointments, but sees them as an opportunity to spread more joy.

 

She has endurance and patience to keep going when things are hard to do. She teaches me to look for and see the good all around. I think she is here to teach us all something. The most incredible part is, she does all this with very few words. She reminds me to look for the silver lining when it seems there just can’t be one. My little Lauren Birch.