We had the great privilege of knowing Laurel Cossitt. If you read her column in "A GRANDMOTHER'S CIRCLE" you know how loving, down-to-earth and intelligent she was.
She only had the chance to know her first and only grandchild, Aidan, for the first 19 months of his life. It is clear from her articles how much she adored her children and her grandson. ("The smartest, most beautiful boy in the world".)
Our lives are so busy but with Facebook we can stay in touch with friends and know things that are going on in their lives. We talked with Laurel and emailed back and forth and were more than Facebook friends.In August, Laurel wrote that she had received very bad news about her health. I wrote back that I hoped it would be something simple and she would be ok. But she wasn't ok. We recently got the news from our mutual friend that she had passed away on September 7th from an aggressive form of cancer that had spread to all her organs. She was told that she'd have maybe 6 months to live without chemo. She actually had less than 6 weeks.
It's a strange, yet profound sorrow to lose a friend that you never met in person, but who nevertheless meant a lot to you. She was an important part of our BabyMeTV family. She was full of plans for future articles she would write. And they were all wonderful ideas. It is our loss that we will never hear her voice again.
She wrote about the joys of being her daughter's doula. She enjoyed taking Joanne's crazy dogs for walks (or maybe the other way around) and doing things to fix up the apartment for the new baby. As a pediatric nurse, she was thrilled to be there for the birth of her grandson.
She was disappointed to miss the birth of her niece's baby, a home birth that she planned to share in an article. (Check out her article about Home Birth written before the birth of her niece's baby.)
We saw a huge assortment of slings at the ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. We got to know one young mother and her baby son. She worked the show and carried baby Henry all 9 hours of the show! I had not yet learned of Laurel's death and kept thinking of her every time I saw another booth for baby wraps. She had written an article about "baby-wearing. I couldn't wait to call her and tell about all the new stuff we saw. Now I won't get that chance.
I hope that you will read or re-read Laurel's articles. Parents and grandparents can learn so much from this loving grandma.
Laurel will always be in our hearts. She provided her wisdom and creative insights to all our visitors in her wonderful Grand Parent column - A GRANDMOTHER'S CIRCLE
Laurel's most recent article How Grand It Is...Read to That Grandkid! is featured on our home page. Please check it out... you'll be glad you did.
Laurel was truly a Grand Person and a wonderful Grandma -- we know that her writing will help many grandparents and parents or years to come. We miss Laurel.
