Helping children cope with grief.
Client Stories
Flip's Story
Flip was almost forty when Wendy, twenty-nine, came into his life. Brash, funny and given to speaking her mind, Wendy turned his world upside down. They planned to marry. A month before the wedding, Wendy discovered a lump under her arm. Tests confirmed Wendy and Flip's worst fears. Not only did Wendy have breast cancer, but it had already moved into her lymph system. Even with treatment, there was a 70 percent chance the cancer would recur within a few years. "At first, Wendy wanted to call off the wedding," remembers Flip. He convinced her, however, that no matter what the future held, they would face it together. In a wedding picture from that day in June 1991 Wendy looks radiant. But the next day, instead of preparing for her honeymoon, Wendy cut off all her hair in anticipation of the long regimen of chemotherapy she was about to undergo. After three months of intense "chemo," Wendy began radiation treatments and continued with those until the end of October. Finally, in December, they went on their honeymoon.
Against all odds, their son, Charlie, was born a year later, and a year after that, their daughter, Sarah, arrived. Wendy was getting regular checkups and everything seemed fine. Then, in January 1995, Wendy found a lump under her left arm. The cancer was back. What followed was series of harrowing treatments as physicians tried desperately to put the cancer into remission. By the end of May 1996, Wendy's physicians advised that she would probably only live two more months.
Janet du Monceaux of Safe Crossings met Flip and Wendy and their children through Hospice of Seattle. "One of the best things for me was having someone else to talk to about how I should be giving information to Charlie, Sarah and Casey," says Flip. "I knew I couldn't and shouldn't shield them from the fact that Wendy was dying, but I wasn't sure about how it needed to be presented to them so that they would understand." Casey was by then 11, Charlie was three and a half, and Sarah two and a half. Du Monceaux also helped Casey, Charlie and Sarah find ways to express positive feelings, such as their love for their mother. "Sometimes something as small as getting a parent a glass of water can make children feel that they did something to help," says du Monceaux. Casey, Charlie and Sarah made drawings for Wendy and spent quiet time with her. On the day Wendy died, her sister and Flip were holding each of her hands. The children came in later, says Flip, after they decided on their own that they wanted to say a final good-bye to their mom.
The children today, he says, are "remarkable." They're healthy and happy and all doing well in school. At times, however, they still feel keenly the loss of their mom. "The other night, Charlie was lying with his head on my stomach and we were talking," said Flip recently. "He started crying and said, "On the day Mommy died, her heart stopped beating. I was so sad, I didn't know what to do." Flip told Charlie that he felt the same way and that it was okay. Then he looked at Charlie and Sarah-as Wendy's legacy to him-and realized how much she would always be a part of their lives.