Go Blog Yourself

2-6-09

Things I know:

Sometimes kids get cancer.

No child deserves to get cancer

It’s not because any of us did something wrong.

Or didn’t do something right.

God does not give kids cancer.

Or Anyone else.

There is still no cure for cancer.

My children, your children, can find the cure for cancer.

Tuesday will be their muse.

She will be a muse to many.

She is my muse.

Tuesday changed lives.

She will continue to change lives.

Our family is better because of Tuesday.

Oh, how we miss Tuesday.

Our family will always feel that hole.

Our family is still whole.

We will know joy.

We won’t forget.

Being Tuesday’s mother is my most humbling honor.

Being Spencer, Axel and Piper’s mother is my great reward.

Charely.  No words.  I love you.

2-09-09

Now what?  Wake up.  Did I sleep?  Just get out of bed.  Boys to school.  Watch Piper try on Tuesday’s hat and shoes.  I can’t do this.  I can do this.  Eat a half bag of chips.  Eat four cookies.  I think I’ve been staring in to the pantry for a very long time now.  Maybe I’ll take a bath.  I don’t think this water is hot enough.  Look at all these bruises on my legs?  Why the hell do I have bruises all over my shins?  Do Not get out of the bath to Google ‘bruises on legs + cancer’.  People (me) get bruises all the time.  It’s not cancer.  My God, why am I letting my mind play tricks on me like this?  Get out of bath.  Draw the curtains and get back in bed.  Maybe I’ll watch tv in bed all day.  Nope.  I hate this too.  I can’t think.  I don’t know how to get out of my room.  Charley comes for me.  He doesn’t have any idea either.  We cry.  I’m sore from crying.  I didn’t know that could happen.  He hugs me.  He will get me thru this.  I will get him through this.  The boys are home.  Piper is awake.  Breath.  They need us.  They need me to be a safe place.  Not more pain.  

Someone is laughing.

Go.

Enjoy them.

2-11-09           

Today I invited S and K over.  I don’t remember what we talked about but I heard Piper giggle for the first time in ?

We took the girls to McDonalds.  (Everyone’s favorite haven to grieve)  I saw an old/good friend and cried in the play area.  Ran in to someone else in the bathroom who didn’t know.

I told her my daughter died from cancer last week.

It’s a start.

2-12-09

I’m jolted awake to a phone call at 6:30 this morning.  My heart is racing.  I thought something happened to Tuesday.  

It was Wesley from Coffee Cabin (greatest tiny coffee joint in the world!) talking about a fundraiser and Children’s Hospital and $1,007 and Tuesday’s memory and would I take a ride with him to deliver the check to TCH and since I was half asleep, I said Yes and that I’d be there in 15 minutes.  I pulled on some jeans, brushed my teeth and grabbed some photos– got in the car and started to freak a bit.  I wasn’t expecting to back to the hospital this soon, but in this new life of wasn’t expectings, you find yourself just doing.  

Wesley is fabulous and so is his wife, Kristy.  They fed me a coffee and Wes fed me with stories on the drive in, of customers, and friends who have recently lost and are in this grieving process.  A strange and comforting connection to our community and, well, humanity.  I’ve connected with people when new lives were unfurling, but never shared this sacred bond of knowing the unimaginable pain of the end of a life of a beloved.  

Once we got to Children’s and I saw the lobby filled with the live broadcasting of the Alice 105.9 radio show, I was able to get lost in the commotion of the cause and the curing and the healing and the hope going on around me and it felt safe to be there again.  Among our new family.  SO many hugs and kind words and genuine concern and love for my family and admiration for our lovely Miss Tuesday.  Wesley gave their generous donation and I was asked to do an interview.  I agreed.  I had no idea what I said until I heard it replayed later that day.  The DJ’s (are the still called that?)  told me that the phones started ringing off the hook after I told Tuesday’s story and that they would be re-running my interview.  

Today’s tears felt different.  Purpose.  Something good this way comes.

Thank you, my sweet Tuesday.

www.alice1059.com  Alice radio station

Signs.  Maybe they are something that those of us who’ve lost are hyper-sensitive to.  Maybe they are divine.  Maybe they are phooey.  But today, after a long drive on a cloudy day, we pulled in to our our driveway, only to find a big pink “sign”.

This post is from Minna, a longtime friend of the Whitts:

Several people have inquired about making donations to the Whitt family to help offset the costs they’ve incurred through Tuesday’s fight against neuroblastoma. Therefore I have established the “Tuesday Fiona Whitt Memorial Fund” through the FirstBank here in Parker, Colorado.

If you would like to make a contribution please feel free to do so by sending your donation to this address:

If you would prefer to make a donation to pediatric cancer research in Tuesday’s name, www.magicwater.org or the Children’s Hospital in Denver Colorado www.thechildrenshospital.org/give/donate.aspx are two good choices.

Please know that all of your love, thoughts and prayers are so very much appreciated.

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”
Albert Einstein