I want something. Something good. And important. For Children.

It costs $200 million dollars.

Impossible, right?

The Buddha said, "Love each person as if they were your own child.”

What if each mom reading this believed that the amount of juicy, unwavering love they feel for their child could in fact translate into a focused laser of goodwill that facilitated a miracle.

What would you want to see happen?

I want to see a children's hospital come into being.

There are three amazing pediatric hospitals in the Bay Area that have saved countless children's lives -- kids just like yours. Many kids have been transported here or their families brought them here from all over the world for help with conditions and diseases untold.

One of these hospitals is a training center for some of the most promising young surgeons and pediatric specialists in the world.

And that hospital is housed in an ancient, exhausted building in San Francisco. Parts of it look like a third-world structure.

There will be no improvements made. The rates of infection and cross-contamination are highly affected by crowding and sluggish ventilation.

A new hospital has been decided on, so no funding will improve what is already there.

Here's the hitch: No hospital will be built until at least $200 million dollars in private funding is accumulated. One young administrator told me, "I will be retired before they break ground on that hospital.”

Here is my wish, my hope that good conquers avarice and love for children creates miracles. San Francisco built a baseball stadium downtown against a few odds. Little big deal. Moveon.org got people to boot the administration's congressional minions. Bigger deal.

Maybe I can help. I don't know anyone very wealthy. But I am good at phone trees and writing and have lost a good deal of social inhibition. I am going to find out where the money could come from and what I can do to help. I am going to believe that what the Buddha asks of the world is possible, to varying degress, for all of us.

I'd like to hear what other moms wish for, against the odds or not.

Just imagining the combined love for our dear children makes me think we're unstoppable.

By Avvy Mar

Labels: Avvy Mar, Buddha, children's hospital, miracles, raising money, San Francisco

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"You loved me more when I was a baby," said my seven-year-old son Walker as we looked at our family album.

I nuzzled his hair, and said, "I adore you more every day. I loved how cozy you were then, but now you’re able to talk.  You can read to me, and I don't have to change your diapers."

Walker seemed satisfied with my incomplete answer. I turned off his bedroom light and went back to the photos. There he was, newborn, in a penguin pantsuit with matching cap. His skin looked red and blotchy, and his eyes were shut. At six months, he was still bald, but smiling, like a wise Buddha.  At two, he had long wisps of yellow hair and clutched a Thomas the Train.

Now, Walker's head is covered in blond curls, and his two front teeth are missing. He looks like a vampire cherub.

I love all the Walkers. To me, he is an ever-transforming miracle. 

I will always remember all that Walker was. I know that's how many parents get through their children's adolescences. When their teenager has baggy pants hanging off his butt, body odor and a nipple ring, they remember a four-year-old who loved dinosaurs. When fifteen-year-old Walker is embarrassed to have me pick him up at school, I'll remember when he asked me to marry him.

I change, too.

The last time my parents visited, my mother stared at the age furrow on my forehead. It must feel odd to have one's children begin to look old.

I believe in an afterlife, but I wonder how it works. Do we get to pick our age?  

I would prefer the body I had at eighteen, and the mind I had at forty. I want Walker to be a little boy, but I doubt he'd make the same choice.  

Whatever ages we chose, I think we would eventually get bored.  

Human life is spent in motion, and I don't think I could adjust to being static. We exist as trajectory lines, not points, and I suspect that in heaven, we will get to evolve, too.  

By Beth Touchette

Labels: adolescence, afterlife, baggy pants, Beth Touchette, Buddha, cherub, diapers, dinosaurs, miracle, nipple ring, Thomas the Train, vampire

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