Hugs for Brady and Sophia

In less than one year two close friends of my 39 year old daughter, Jen, have lost their precious toddler children to cancer.

Sherrie and Jen were toddlers themselves together.  Sherrie's mom and I would walk together pushing Sherrie and Jen in their strollers.

In July of 2010, Sherrie and Mike buried their son Brady after a long hard battle with cancer.  Here is an excerpt from a post on Jen's Facebook page:

 Dear Friends: I will be participating in the 2011 A Walk In The Park event at Six Flags supporting Children's Miracle Network Hospitals®. We are walking in memory of our friend Brady Wells. Brady was born on 8/21/2008, and on October 12, 2009 he was diagnosed with Non-differentiated Acute Leukemia. He had gone through 6 rounds of chemotherapy and 1 peripheral blood stem cell transplant. 72 days after Brady's successful transplant, he relapsed. On July 30, 2010 Brady passed away in his loving Mother's arms. 

Last night Jen called to tell me that her room mate from college, Nicole and her husband Juan's daughter Sophia had passed away.  Sophia had just turned three years old.   At six months she was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma.   That little girl also spent most of her life in hospitals and in treatment.

Jen received this e-mail from Juan:

To My Family and Friends,

I’m writing with a heavy heart having to make funeral arrangements for my baby. Due to her diagnoses at 6months old insurance companies would not give us coverage. As you can image the financial burden of her care in the past three years has been enormous, we have to reach out to our friends and family for assistance in her burial costs. Please Email or text me back if you can contribute, that would be a huge burden lifter. 

It's obvious that these young families have gone through unimaginable heart wrenching emotional pain.  For them to have to worry about where the money for a funeral is going to come from is criminal and seriously unjust.

Can we blame the greedy insurance companies?

Or perhaps the system is broken at the level of our elected officials whose goal and focus seems to be to get re-elected.  Should the blame be placed on them for spending more time finger pointing and name calling rather than getting the work done?  I'm sure none of them will ever have to worry about how they will pay for funeral expenses for a loved one.

At a time like this there are so many questions.  The biggest is WHY?

Unfortunately, at this point, there seems to be more questions and not enough answers.

Sherrie and Mike have started a foundation called Hugs for Brady. They did not wait for someone else to find the answers.  They have poured their hearts and souls into helping other families who are struggling with the obscene tragedy of Pediatric Cancer.

If you can, please take a moment to check out their story.  It probably will make you hug your little one today.