…to bring you a quick update on my family’s Leukemia and Lymphoma Society campaign and to tell you about an amazing new children’s book you just might love. (Keep reading.)
First things first: if you don’t know what campaign I’m referring to, you can click here for the full story. But briefly, my cousin Meredith has been nominated for LLS’ Woman of the Year, and I’m on her team to help her raise half a million dollars to help fund innovative new treatments and the hopeful eradication of a bunch of different types of cancers. We’re doing it this year because it’s the 35th anniversary of her brother Chuck’s death at age 12 from Acute Monocytic Leukemia. Chuck lived for only 48 hours after his diagnosis, and this tragedy has left a profound impact on our family. My hope is that by raising money to help prevent other families from experiencing this horror, I can finally lay my own grief to rest.
My personal goal is to raise $5,000 before the start of June. Dear reader, I am almost halfway there!!! Thank you so much to everyone who has already contributed! It means the world to me and to my family.
You’ll get one chance to win for every $25 you donate! (I’ve included in the raffle previous donors at the $25 level and above to show my gratitude for their jumping into our campaign right away.)
Jayne Pillemer’s new book, Still Mine, is an absolute treasure. I wish I’d had a copy of it when I was young. Here’s a sample of the extraordinary artwork on the inside by illustrator Sheryl Murray.
And here’s the blurb from publisher HarperCollins:
Our hands around a cup of hot chocolate, sweet and warm. Our boots splashing in puddles. The song you sing to me when the sun comes up. This is how we say “I love you” every day.
But what happens when the person you love is gone? Your heart hurts and you miss them, but even though your eyes can’t see them anymore and your arms can’t hug them, they are still there, still yours to love . . . just in a different way.
Jayne Pillemer’s lyrical story and Sheryl Murray’s sweet illustrations offer gentle comfort and reassurance to anyone who has experienced loss that you still carry those you love with you in the smallest things—and in your heart—forever.
STILL MINE is a timely and evocative picture book that provides comfort for anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one. Targeted for ages 4 -8, STILL MINE is a gentle way to approach the difficult topics of illness and death with children and offer them a sense of hope and peace.
Believe me when I tell you Jayne’s book healed my inner child, just a little bit. Her book gives us a perfect way to approach the subjects of loss and grief with young people in a way that is both clear and uplifting, which allows for sadness as a natural human emotion but helps us to understand that the sadness, and even the loss, aren’t the end of the story.
So join our fight to eradicate cancer and be entered to win a personalized and signed copy of Jayne’s book! You can donate at this link. And thank you, thank you, so very much.
Many of you who know me well are aware that I always have a bunch of projects going on. One of the things I’ve been working on lately — one quite near and dear to my heart — is a very special undertaking my cousin Meredith asked me to do with her. She’s calling it Charlie’s Angels.
Not the kind with Bosley. I’ll explain. (TW: death)
As a writer, I find myself revisiting certain events in my life through my creative work. These include growing up in my family’s legendary grocery store, laboring with my classmates in tenth grade to free a trapped deer from a barbed wire fence on the side of a highway, the unexpected death of my cousin Chuck when we were in middle school.
This was Chuck’s last school picture, taken in 6th grade, less than two months before he died.
These events that had such a profound effect on me during my formative years keep coming back, in various ways, in my writing, as I continually try to parse out their meaning and effect on my life.
You’ll see from the following post by Meredith, Chuck’s younger sister, that his death was quick and shocking. Meredith was nine, I was thirteen, and Chuck was twelve when he suddenly passed away from what my mother had called “acute adult leukemia.” Meredith and Chuck were my primary social circle at that time in my life, and my ensuing grief was transformative: I retreated; I quit playing the piano; I cried myself to sleep every night for six weeks. The adults around me, also spiraling in their shock and sorrow, had no way to help me, and so I kept my sadness as far inside me as I could. But later, when I had children of my own, I found that the normal fears involved in parenting had become compounded with my buried grief, so that every unusual headache and every unexplained bump or bruise had me calling our pediatrician for reassurance.
My cousin’s faith sustains her. I admire this kind of strength, but I have found in my own life that action is the surest way to dispel my own anxiety. Meredith has brought our shared trauma back to me in a way that allows me to act, and so I have joined her campaign to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society this spring. (There are more details in her post; I hope you will give it a quick read.)
This October it will have been thirty-five years since Chuck died. This spring’s campaign feels like a powerful way to acknowledge the raw sadness we’ve all carried around with us for so long.
My own personal goal is to raise $5,000 over ten weeks (starting today), so that other families will avoid the loss and pain that ours has known, so that other critically ill children will benefit from the newest, life-saving treatments being developed even now to fight these horrible cancers. No donation is too small or too large, so if you are able to contribute and feel motivated to do so, please follow that impulse, because action dispels anxiety.
If you feel encouraged to contribute to our campaign, you can do so by clicking here to visit my personal fundraising page. On that page you can also see an absosmurfly ADORABLE picture of us when we were little kids.
The campaign launches today, and any team (such as Charlie’s Angels) that raises the most money by 5:00 p.m. today gets an additional $2,500.00 to add to their total from a dedicated fund meant to bolster our efforts.
Without further ado, here’s Meredith’s post, which also contains exciting information about advances being made even now in the field of cancer eradication. Thank you for reading it, and thank you for reading about my own part in this story.
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from Meredith:
My family and our entire community were changed forever on Saturday, October 31, 1987. That was the day my 12-year-old brother, Charles Joseph Jamail (better known to friends and family as Chuck), was called home by our Lord.
It all started just a few days earlier. Chuck was complaining of headaches after having played soccer. They continued with no relief, so Mom took him to the doctor. They ran some bloodwork, and after getting the results, my mom was told he needed to go to the hospital immediately. He was admitted to Texas Children’s Hospital on Thursday, diagnosed with Acute Monocytic Leukemia, coma-induced on Friday, and brain dead on Saturday.
I was just nine years old when Dad delivered the news. I had just arrived home from being at the museum’s Halloween carnival with a friend. There was an overwhelming number of people scurrying around my house, inside and out. Having been at the hospital just the day before and seeing Chuck in the ICU, my heart leapt for joy at the thought of him already being home! When my dad knelt down to greet me in the front yard and told me that Chuck had passed away, I only felt one thing…absolute disbelief. I can’t recall how long it took for me to realize this was our reality.
Since then, I periodically ask my parents to share with me their recollection of the details of that week, although, my questions for them have changed over the years. Recently, I asked my mom how in the world she was able to turn off the life support. Her response? The Holy Spirit. Wow! My mother, an absolute pillar of strength. As a mother, I have tried to imagine myself in the same situation. I can’t.
My own memories are spotty, the details fuzzy – after all, 35 years is a long time passed. The loss of my perfect brother, the one frequently mistaken for my twin, has shaped me maybe more than anything else in my life. My prayer, my hope has always been that no other mother, father, sibling, son, daughter, cousin, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or friend will have to experience what our community experienced. But what could I do to make an impact?
Chuck and Meredith together, probably in the late 1970s.
A wonderful opportunity finally presented itself: I have been nominated by a childhood friend to be a candidate for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) Man & Woman of the Year “MWOY” campaign. Seems to me like the perfect way to make an impact!! When asked to do this, I felt excited, but also overwhelmed and nervous. This is a huge task, and an even bigger honor!
Since 2000, 40% of all new cancer therapies approved by the U.S. FDA are blood cancer therapies. Breakthrough advances in blood cancer research are now helping patients with other diseases, including diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, as well as non-blood cancers, including breast, pancreatic, brain, bone, liver, lung, kidney, ovarian, prostate, skin, stomach, melanoma, and lupus nephritis. You don’t have to look far to find someone you know who has been impacted.
With the mission and work of LLS, prayers are being answered. From the efforts of MWOY candidates who have come before me, LLS has been able to provide financial assistance for travel and medical costs for local patients, fund research, and provide general information, education, and support for patients and family members (including identifying clinical trials, support groups, etc.).
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is also reimagining pediatric blood cancer care with the LLS Children’s Initiative. LLS is striving to make children’s treatments safer, less toxic, and more effective—and ultimately, they will find better treatments and cures. While many children survive acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of pediatric blood cancer, the treatments are harsh and outdated. The long-term effects of current therapies can create severe life-threatening complications. And survival rates for children with other high-risk types of leukemia, such as acute myeloid leukemia, are very poor.
LLS Children’s Initiative is investing over $100 million over the next five years toward global, groundbreaking children’s blood cancer research and patient support. They are tackling pediatric blood cancers from every angle as they are the leader in a global pediatric master clinical trial and they continue to offer a wide range of free education, 1:1 support services, financial assistance, and advocacy on behalf of all young patients and their families.
LLS Children’s Initiative is investing over $100 million over the next five years toward global, groundbreaking children’s blood cancer research and patient support. They are tackling pediatric blood cancers from every angle as they are the leader in a global pediatric master clinical trial and they continue to offer a wide range of free education, 1:1 support services, financial assistance, and advocacy on behalf of all young patients and their families.
I am so excited about this opportunity to make, what I intend to be, a significant impact in the cancer community! I would love your partnership in doing so. My personal goal for our team, Charlie’s Angels, is to raise $500,000. Please know any amount you give could mean the gift of life, to a stranger or a friend.
Sappho's Torque 