A Letter to Family House

January 16, 2019

Kneeland, California

Dear Family House families, staff, and friends,

Happy new year! Since my son finished a three and a half-year course of treatment for leukemia last September, I’ve had some time to reflect on what Tristan and our family went through during that period, and what that period, much of it spent at Family House, means to me. I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

First things first: I have no regrets. Of course, if I were given the choice, I would choose for my toddler son to not develop leukemia. I’d be a nutter otherwise. But I didn’t get to make that choice, and there are lots of things in my life that are not the way they would have been if we had not been through all that we went through. They’re better. Tristan and I share a wonderful closeness; I’m a different person from the one I was before, more confident and willing to take on new challenges that would have been prohibitively intimidating before; and I now have in my life a group of incredible friends whom I would not otherwise have met. Most of these people – warrior moms and warrior kids, I call them – I met at Family House.

Sitting around the dining table at the old Family House in the Sunset District, and later in the sunny, new Mission Bay kitchens, one by one I met people – parents and kids – who were so bravely toughing it out through the most horrendous experiences you can imagine. I saw such love from parents, for example when teenage Bianca’s father stood protectively behind her chair while she told me the story of her double lung transplant. It was like he needed to be as near to her as possible to guard her while she replayed the story, and, if you heard the story, that would make sense. Bianca, you are one tough chick. I felt such kindness from parents who, in solidarity over the fear and uncertainty we faced every day, shared their love with me – I’ll never forget those delicious enchiladas that Kristina, Ivan’s mom, fed me one night. Thank you, Kristina, for your warmth and generosity, and for your husband’s salsa, which was amazing. I saw such strength in warrior moms who were fighting for their kids with every neutrophil and platelet in their mama bodies, and who were finding creative ways to make it all okay. Coco, those henna designs covering your daughter’s bald head were stunning; I’ve never seen anything like it.

I learned and grew with each warrior mom and warrior kid I met, and I’m not the same person I was when Tristan and I began this whole adventure. I know much more about how people suffer, but, more importantly, I know much more about how strong people, including me, can be, and about how much love is out there, and that there is a lot of good in the universe. Thanks, Family House, for connecting me with others who taught me these things.

Much love,

Toni