Our son has spent his entire life in the hospital. For his first Halloween, he need a costume that would help him feel brave.
Everyone faces their own challenges and struggles each and every day. You may not have control over what happens in your life. You get sick, you lose a loved one, you lose a job. These things happen to everyone. But what you can control is how you choose to to handle it. Do you choose despair? Or do you choose hope?
Eric Hart's son Collier has been hospitalized since he was born prematurely in July. He's survived hooked up to machines, wires, and monitors. That's been his whole life experience. But he's still fighting.
When Halloween rolled around, Eric wanted to make sure that Collier had a costume that perfectly reflected the spirit of his struggle. So it was no surprise that he chose to build his son a suit of armor modeled after Iron Man, a superhero dedicated to helping others despite his damaged heart.
Screen shot via YouTube
"I came up with Iron Man because he’s been hooked up to all those machines and wires, and that’s similar to what Iron Man went through," Hart said.
Hart put together a video documenting the process of making the costume for Collier, and it was intended only to be shared with a few friends and family members. But it quickly went viral, and now Hart and his family have received tons of messages of support from parents in similar situations.
Screen shot via YouTube
"It just resonates with them of being able to find a small moment of joy during months and months of physical and spiritual exhaustion," he told Today.com. "There are a lot of times when the baby is sedated, and you can’t interact, so this is something we could actually do and say, ‘We may not be normal right now but this is our new normal.'"