Passing too young

Several weeks ago, a high school classmate of mine posted a simple request as her Facebook status. A little girl, 8 years old, in Oregon wanted to get 23,000 likes for her page. Could we please help her out? Such a simple request from a little girl, one I couldn't deny. I hit the magical like button and hoped I'd offered some sort of brightness to this girl.
Faith was no ordinary girl. Faith had osteo-sarcoma, bone cancer. As I perused her page, "Faith's Friends," I learned of her courageous battle, how it all began and how long until it would end. Throughout the next several weeks, I read her mom's increasingly painful updates. At first she spoke of playing with Barbies and watching Phineas and Ferb with mentions of pain medicine and difficulties. These updates included news of Faith's birthday party, moved up from October, and Faith's need to put pajamas on Barbie and Ken at night and daytime clothes in the morning. They also noted Faith's increased pain, discomfort, growing tumors and, recently, more time spent asleep as being awake became too painful. Throughout this journey, I felt most struck by the strength and determination of both Faith and her mother. Faith needed and achieved a pretty typical life until the very end and her mother still managed to provide updates to all those who came to care about Faith and to maintain her faith in God.
On Monday evening, Faith earned her "angel wings" as her mother wrote. Although not unexpected news, a part of me still couldn't believe she had passed so quickly. I had hoped, probably naively, that Faith might remain here on Earth for a longer time, give her family more time with her, but that was not to be.
News of a child's passing is always difficult to hear, even when you don't know the child personally. Once you become a mom the news is unbearable. I cannot fathom how a mother watches her young child die. This is my worst nightmare. I am awed by Faith's mother's strength, her ability even to discuss her daughter's passing. I am pretty sure that if it were me I would crawl into a ball and be unable to function. How does a mother move on from that?
Being a mom has made me infinitely aware of the finite moments we all have on this planet. Not only is our time here finite, but the small moments of our days are as well. We only get so many days of bringing our children to preschool or being able to call our moms on the phone. Everything can change in a split second and, often times, we have no warning. Go watch your children sleep. Call your mom. Tell the people who matter that you love them. Go put some pajamas on Barbie. From somewhere, Faith will be smiling.