From the moment you first learn that you are going to become a parent, you also learn how incredibly precious and fragile life can be and how little control you have over the way things will turn out. Fortunately most of us never have to face that kind of terror as we celebrate the normal ups and downs of life with kids.

One beautiful spring day in May, two and a half years ago, a young Montana couple, Jon and Jessi Bennion, found out just how scary reality can be when their eagerly awaited first child was born unexpectedly at just twenty-three weeks of gestation. Even with all the miracles of modern medicine, the odds for a micro-premie’s survival are frighteningly low.

The story of baby Jack was first shared by his father, Jon, in a series of emails to friends and family in the days following the baby’s birth. I was fortunate to be included in the email chain that heralded the triumphs and shared the traumas that comprised the first months of Jack’s life. Jon is a very talented writer and, like may others, I had been hoping that he would compile those early emails and the subsequent blog posts into a book. The book is now written and ready to be published so the world can be a witness to Jack’s incredible journey from tiny infant in the NICU to delightful toddler:

It was during that night when I learned my first lesson as a father. My role in life had changed substantially – more than when I started kindergarten, learned to drive, graduated from college and law school, and even more than when I got married. There was a miniature human being with my genes that was now totally dependent on me and others for his very life. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.
At some point, it became clear to me that I needed to be a father by choosing hope. My son needed a cheering section with me leading the charge, not a scared, despondent dad bent on protecting his own feelings. If Jack ended up succumbing to the complications of his extreme prematurity, I would be crushed. But my own feelings were not important enough to withhold my faith in my son. I would survive somehow. If I couldn’t be my son’s biggest fan, who would be?
Despite feelings of denial, fear, anger, and desperation, I made the choice that hope would overcome any negative feelings about the situation we now faced. Jack needed me – he needed his dad.

I’m here for you, buddy. I will do anything for you. I believe in you.

It’s a Christmas story and an Easter story. It is a story that you can read with equal part smiles and tears because it is a story of faith, of hope, of love – and mostly a story of the indomitable spirit of human life. And even if you know a story sort of like this, you still have to read this one simply because, “You Don’t Know Jack!”