Sometimes something happens, completely by chance, that alters the trajectory of our lives ever so slightly. That happened last night around 8 o’clock. I was skimming through tweets when I came across one imploring prayers for @LaylaGrace. I’m not sure if it was concern or curiosity, but I clicked on @LaylaGrace to see who she was. I just was not prepared for what awaited me at the other side of that click. Layla Grace is a beautiful 2 year old angel who has stage 4 high risk neuroblastoma cancer. For the past 10 months her mother and father have been blogging the incredible heart wrenching journey of their fight for their tiny daughter’s life at laylagrace.org.
Now I’ve never been 100% sold on twitter’s intrinsic value. I know information spreads through it like wildfire. The Iran crisis, the Haiti earthquake, now the Chili disaster. And this is all good. Being a techie, I use twitter along with Facebook more or less to stay in the “game.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m constantly coming in contact with people it would have been impossible to communicate with 5 years ago. I’ve found communities of like-minded people I like to hang out with. From a business and marketing standpoint, twitter is the place to be right now. However, it’s not and probably never will be my social touch stone.
But what’s been happening with little Layla Grace in the twitterverse is truly incredible. Last night when I saw that first tweet Layla’s followers were 25,000+. Right now it’s over 30,000 and climbing. Thirty thousand people, strangers, not like-minded at all, praying together for a little girl and her family that we’ll more than likely never know personally or meet beyond this thing called twitter. Yet combine that with her photolog on Flickr and Layla’s site at laylagrace.org, in 24 short hours I feel like I know this little girl and her family. The internet has helped share their journey with thousands. And here we are, united in a singular goal; praying for Layla and her family, and imploring others to pray with us, one Retweet at a time. More and more fund raisers are popping up. Mom businesses, Etsyians, individuals are all stepping up to the call to help raise money for Layla’s care. It reaffirms my belief in the goodness and generosity of people. And perhaps, just as important, I’ve finally found the intrinsic value in this thing called twitter. Please join us in praying for Layla and her family. We want a miracle, but time is short.
