by Tara Shafer posted in Parenting

Charlie Gard, who became the subject of an international lightning rod legal case for the rights of parents to chart a course of treatment on behalf of their sick babies, died on Friday.
Baby Charlie was 11 months old. He was born was an extremely rare condition called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. His short life became the subject of an intense court battle in Great Britain, as parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard fought to fully steer their son?s course of treatment even when their own opinions differed from those expressed in the medical community.
Baby Charlie quickly became a symbol of the heartbreaking legal and ethical dilemmas babies with life-threatening or terminal medical diagnoses face. But I don't want to focus on Baby Charlie as a symbol of anything. Instead, I want to remember him just as a baby. Much is made of the courage of his parents for their staunch legal advocacy in the face of seemingly insurmountable medical odds.
Here, I want to leave the legal out.
I simply honor the courage it takes to fall in love with a baby who is dying. It is a strange courage ? many in the loss community take issue with the concept of "courage" as attached to love of a child. Of "courage" in their perseverance. These parents would say it was the most natural thing in the world to them, and what they drew on was not courage but parental love. Still, the loss of a child is soul destroying and it does take a kind...