A Brother Is Sick

By the time I first saw Celia, her son Franklin had been in two hospitals with terminal brain cancer. A social worker in the palliative care team at the second hospital gave Celia my name. Little Frankie was four and his sister Becky was six. Celia’s concern was how she and her husband Kevin should explain to Becky why her brother was not coming home from the hospital.

Part of the challenge for Celia and Kevin was their relatives, who were vocally opposed to explaining anything to Becky, and adamantly against using the word “cancer” for so young a child. I explained that, intuitively, Becky already knew her brother was dying – children always know these things, though they may not have the language to comprehend exactly what is going on. Becky needed to hear it from Mommy and Daddy, who taught her everything else.

I made the family a storybook, illustrated with the superhero cartoon characters both Frankie and Becky loved so much. We decorated a pillowcase for Franklin in the hospital. We also got the primary doctor handling Frankie’s care involved. In one of our play sessions, I used storybook pictures of a normal brain and a sick brain, and suddenly Becky had an “aha!” moment, when she beamed with pride at her new understanding of Frankie’s condition. Things got easier for Becky around Frankie, after that. By the time Frankie died a few months later, she felt included in the family’s real story.