Here's a heartbreaking, beautifully written New York Times piece about Jewish parents seeking to have their deceased son circumcised.

Dr. Mark S. Litwin, a professor of urology and public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and trained in the Jewish ritual of circumcision, gives a moving, firsthand account of how he was asked by young parents to perform a bris on their infant son, who had died shortly after he was born.

His story might very well make you cry — and lead you to appreciate, in a deeper way, the life we're given: