William Christopher Lane

This is a dif­fi­cult post to write.

Six week old William Chrit­sto­pher Lane was diag­nosed with viral menin­gi­tis on Sun­day. Today is now Sat­ur­day and things are not look­ing good for William. As you can all imag­ine, times are very dif­fi­cult for the Lane family.

William’s father, Ron­nie, started out as my neigh­bor. His fam­ily lived next door and I babysat the kids when they were lit­tle. Ron­nie was a lit­tle bit too close in age for me to babysit him but he always helped me out with what­ever I needed. He was an amaz­ing big brother to his sib­lings. I never thought about it before but it explains why he is such an amaz­ing father. Ron­nie and I later shared a Jour­nal­ism class together in high school. I sat behind him and we worked together on some projects. He was no longer the young kid next door; he was my class­mate, my friend, and an aspir­ing sports announcer. Ronnie’s mom later began dat­ing my dad and then he became almost like a step-brother to me. One of the things I love about Ron­nie is the size of his heart — it’s huge! When he talks to you, you know that he is speak­ing with love and gen­uinely cares about you. I do not get to see him often any­more since I live in Cal­i­for­nia, but no mat­ter how much time has passed I still always feel the same when I get to see him. It is great to see Ron­nie blessed with a fam­ily now. He has a beau­ti­ful wife named Emily and they have two adorable chil­dren — Annie and William.

I spoke to my dad today to find out the update on lit­tle William. He told me some­thing that God had shared with him recently, “Will’s gift was his life. Life isn’t mea­sured by the time spent here on Earth, but by the gift of life. And William’s life was cel­e­brated by many.” It doesn’t look like William will get to spend a lot of time here on Earth, but he did have six amaz­ing weeks here. I went home at the begin­ning of Decem­ber and was able to meet Will when he was just a few days old. You should have seen the joy in my dad’s liv­ing room when baby William arrived. I could see how loved he was by every­one that sur­rounded him. Though his grandma Nancy shared him with guests, she cher­ished any moment he could be in her arms. He is blessed with two par­ents who love him, two uncles (Jason and Michael) and an aunt (Julie) who adore him, Grandma Nancy who can’t get enough of him, and so many oth­ers. William truly has brought so much joy to the Lane family.

I want to share this post to cel­e­brate William’s life. To tell Ron­nie and Emily — I love you. To remind each one of you read­ing that each day of life is a gift.  And to ask you all to please con­tinue to pray for the family.

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Here is baby William with Uncle Jason.

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And here he is on Christ­mas Eve.