In tragedy we like to look for the brief moments of joy, the brief moments of meaning. We hope that something good comes from the loss.
That’s why this news is one we wish to celebrate and one we wish to share.
Earlier this year our hearts broke with the devastating news a family had lost a four week old baby to whooping cough.
38-day old Riley Hughes, from Perth, a picture of newborn perfection, tragically passed away after contracting whooping cough in March.
His parents' Catherine and Greg were understandably shocked and devastated that whooping cough could kill a newborn baby and parents across Australia stopped and wondered just how this could occur.
We learnt that Riley was too young to be immunised against the pertussis bacteria at just four weeks old and when he died in hospital a few days after developing a slight cough his mother was told that if she had have had the pertussis vaccine in her last trimester of pregnancy his death may have been preventable.
But no doctor told Catherine Hughes of the vaccine.
At the time Catherine Hughes, wading through the grief and horror of losing her precious son, took the time to speak out, desperately wanting no other family to go through what they did.
In the days after his death the family graciously allowed his story to be shared writing on Facebook that "Long term we’d ideally like to be the drivers of change within this country surrounding the treatment, management and long term eradication of this horrific disease."