#ATributeToElle

By Maren Hogan:

Raising children is like nothing I’ve ever known. You have one and you manage to get them to 2 or 3 and you think, hooray! I’ve done it. I made it through the vomit down my back and the countless sleepless nights and you brave the terrible twos.

Then you muddle your way through the elementary years. Maybe another child comes along who you THINK will be the same as the first, but no. They shock you. They are their OWN person! You juggle, you spread your love, you commiserate and fight and love with your partner.

And it’s during this time that you start to realize something that should be obvious, but very often isn’t and it’s that this person you raised, the one who depended on you for everything and mirrored your movements like, damn, savant when they were little…is totally his or her own person.

Right around 13 or so is when I start to watch them walk away. But not with any sadness (well, not much) but with a sense that they are walking INTO who they are and walking AWAY from whatever expectations I brought into the relationship. They write their differences in wet cement. They purposely stamp out the things that make them like you. But it’s okay.

At 15, you sit back and you can barely open your eyes for the awesomeness, for the potential they have, for the brilliance of youth and promise that literally oozes from their perfect pores.

It was at this complete and total pinnacle of life that my friend lost his daughter to an awful disease. And his heart and the hearts of his family are aching because that promise was snatched away so soon. Because a poet’s soul and an artist’s heart and captain’s mind slipped like water through their fingers, aching to hold what could not stay.

I don’t know what that feels like but I know if I were to ever say goodbye to my child, at this moment, or at any moment, I would want to do it as Jason and his family have. With grace, with compassion, with total commitment to the LIFE that was and still will be, in some way.

Please give to the causes that mattered to Elle. They are incredibly crucial today and you’ll notice from their selection just how mature and loving a person she must have been.

Click here or the image below to donate along with us.

#ATributeToElle

Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is CEO of Red Branch and general Bad@$$

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. Maren started Red Branch Media and, before she hired all the smiling faces you see below, she ran it on her own. In marketing for over 15 years, she has deep experience in strategic campaigns and a long-term, results-based operational approach.