The conversation started like so many others do in my life these days. A friend and I had both visited our grandchildren over the weekend. His are in Oklahoma. I drove to Texas to see two of my grandsons play football. With the holidays around the corner, the talk turned to which family we might see over Thanksgiving and Christmas.
This will be a special holiday season in my family. Our ninth grandchild is due any day, and we’ll be traveling to Arizona to see him or her over Christmas, probably with one of those “Baby’s First Christmas†outfits in hand.
For so many of us, the holidays are the most joyous time of the year, when we make new memories with our children and our grandchildren. But it’s not that way for everybody. For some, the holidays can be particularly painful because of who isn’t there. They don’t make T-shirts or onesies for such occasions: First Christmas Without Mom. First Thanksgiving Without Our Son.
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Earlier this month, three families near where I live experienced the tragic loss of a child when their teenagers died in an early morning car accident. Fifteen-year-old Jake Keifer, 15-year-old Rhegan Sajben and 16-year-old Cole Anello all died in the fiery wreck. Their parents will spend their first Thanksgiving and Christmas without them.
My son’s friend was the first to tell me about the accident. He went to elementary school with some of the victims at Holy Infant Catholic School. The tragedy of losing a child is one of those things that is never far from a parent’s mind. I still remember when my children were babies, sleeping quietly in their cribs — sometimes so quietly that I would wake them just to make sure they were breathing. There are parents I know who have experienced such a tragedy, and they are stronger than I — so strong that they have turned the loss of a child into something that drives them to a higher purpose.
So it is for Conrad and Eileen Haubrich, who live in Mehlville. Their son, Brett, was 11 when he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. Brett was a student at St. Mark Catholic School. He had a golf ball-sized tumor in his brain.
“Initially, we didn’t really want to talk about it,†Eileen says. “The more you talk about it, the more real it is.â€
There was a surgery to relieve pressure and a biopsy. The news was bad. Brett lived long enough to spend a semester at Bishop DuBourg High School. He died Jan. 10, 2018, at home surrounded by his family.
“It’s shocking†to lose a child, says Conrad. “It’s a surreal experience. You feel like you’re in a bad dream fighting to wake up from, but you can’t.â€
This will be the fourth holiday season the Haubrichs have spent without their son. Since he died, they have become vocal advocates for the nation to pay more attention to childhood cancers and to fund the research to develop treatments and cures. They’ve gone to Washington to lobby elected officials. They’ve participated in area fundraisers such as , which raises money for the Siteman Cancer Center and ºüÀêÊÓƵ Children’s Hospital where Brett received treatment.
It was there that Brett was one of the first children in ºüÀêÊÓƵ to receive a new laser surgery intended to be much less invasive than other treatments. There are 120 types of childhood cancer, the Haubrichs tell me, and they often don’t get as much attention when it comes to research dollars as other types of cancer.
“They need more research,†Conrad says. “There’s so much more that could be done if more money was spent on the research.â€
in the U.S. get cancer, and about 20% of them don’t survive it. The Haubrichs first emailed me asking me to tell their son’s story because they want to turn the death of their child into something that might someday help save another child. That is, if enough money is raised to find the right treatment or the right cure to bring that child home for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
“For us, it’s become a mission,†Conrad says. For his “Make-a-Wish†request, Brett, who would have been 18 this year, wanted to be a Catholic priest for a day. “He was genuinely concerned for others,†remembers his mother. “He would always put others first.â€
That’s a memory worth cherishing this holiday season.