Our board member Sunday Hashmi spoke with experts in child psychology before talking to her children about her brain tumor. She wrote about her experience in the Wall Street Journal.

“After dinner one night recently, I told my 7-year-old son that I’m sick. He was in the middle of drawing a dinosaur. He looked up at me and announced confidently, ‘No, you’re not!’

I don’t look sick, which makes it confusing. I explained that I’ve been living with a disease called cancer for five years, and it happens when some cells in the body grow faster than normal. ‘I know all about cells!’ he declared triumphantly. I told him no one caused it, he can’t catch it and that, regardless of what happens, I’ll love him forever.”

‘If we don’t tell them, they have to cope with their anxieties by themselves,” said Dr. Alan Stein, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Oxford. It is usually better for parents to discuss hard things with their children, he added, so ‘they can get the kind of support they need.’

I wish I could always be there for them, but no parent can protect their children from heartache forever.

What I can do is carry on with ordinary acts of mothering—acts that feel increasingly sacred now. I cook their meals. I pack their snacks. I help them with their homework. I tell them bedtime stories and tuck them in bed. In the park, I feed turtles with my son and share his excitement as he chases fireflies. On weekends, I walk my daughter to Sephora and commiserate with her about the latest school drama.

I’ve come to see that the best gift I can leave my children is my love—a love vast enough to transcend time and space—which I’m making sure they will always know and feel even when I’m gone.”

I Have Terminal Cancer. This Is How I Broke the News to My Children.