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Parents struggle with telling kids they have a serious illness

Honesty is important when talking to children about a parent's illness

By MARTY MORRISON

Date published: 12/21/2004

By MARTY MORRISON

HOLLY MAIRENA understands the mixed emotions Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Sen. John Edwards, must have felt when she told her children she had breast cancer.

Mairena experienced similar feelings when she gave her four children the same news more than a year ago.

She still tears up when she recalls that day.

The family, including her husband, Mario, had just returned from a vacation in Colorado. Before she left, doctors had performed a biopsy after a routine mammogram showed something suspicious.

The test confirmed her worst fears.

Mairena never considered sheltering her children from the cancer diagnosis. As a kindergarten teacher, she knew the bits and pieces of information they might hear from others could do more harm than the truth.

She talked to them in simple, honest terms.

"We pulled them into the living room and told them," said Mairena. "They knew I had been to the doctor before we left for vacation and after we got back."

Their reactions were varied.

Collin, then 11, kept his eyes locked on his mother, while the two middle children, 9-year-old Connor and 7-year-old Alison, started to cry. The youngest, Liam, who hadn't turned 5, shifted closer to his mom and echoed the cries of two of his siblings.

But the hardest question was yet to come.

Connor asked his mother: "Are you going to die?"

The heartfelt query hit her like a jab in the stomach, but she carefully gave her candid response.

"I told him I don't have plans to do that," said Mairena, 40, who lives in southern Spotsylvania County. "I'm going to do everything in my power to fight this."

She told them that she needed their support to battle the disease.

Looking back, Mairena said she wouldn't do things differently.

"I was glad that I did it that way," said Mairena, who is now cancer-free after a mastectomy and chemotherapy. "We do everything as a family. I thought it was important to tell them together."

How to talk to children about a family member's illness is one of the most difficult dilemmas a parent can face. But counselors agree that parents should be truthful.

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Date published: 12/21/2004