“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”  Abraham Lincoln

My mother was a very special part of the my cancer journey.  It was my Mom who found the blood in my diaper. It was my Mom who went through the yellow pages looking for a pediatrician who would examine me.  It was my Mom who heard for the very first time that I had a tumor in my kidney. It was my Mom who went to church the next day and cried and prayed that somehow I would survive this terrible diagnosis.   It was my Mom who was pregnant for the first 9 months of my treatment, but who never failed to accompany me on every single trip to the Mayo Clinic.  (Somehow she even timed giving birth to my sister, Dina, when we were home and in between treatment.) It was my Mom who held me when I cried and who walked me up and down the hallway to keep me entertained during our long hospital stays. It was my Mom whose heart still breaks when she remembers those days.

When I talk to the mothers who call me asking Compass to Care for support, I can feel through their heartbreaking voices that they are just like my own mother.  They will do anything they can to save their child’s life, even when it means going outside their comfort zone to ask others for help.

Compass to Care was founded to offers travel relief to get children to cancer treatment, so we can be a source of help for these mothers. Yet we take absolute pride in also providing compassion during these devastating days, because these mothers are just like our very own.  And just like my amazing Mom, Sandy Ernsdorff, whose prayers have followed me and clung to me all of my life, these mothers are praying the exact same prayer for their very own children – please let her (him) live.

Sunday, is a day to honor our Mothers. Yet these amazing women who bravely fight cancer with their children deserve to be honored each and every day for all they give and for all they give up for the sake of their children.