Freya Everly

The Cancer Support Center was founded to provide strength, guidance, and support to anyone impacted by cancer—whoever and wherever they are. And incredibly, they do it all at no cost. Because when cancer drains you emotionally, physically, and financially, the last thing you need is another barrier to getting help.

What they understand—deeply—is that cancer doesn’t just affect the patient. It affects the entire family.

Every one of us has leaned into the counseling services they provide. Winnie and Miles have been going for over a year now. James and I began couples grief counseling more recently. At first, it felt strange to sit in a quiet room and talk about what we had been pushing through for so long. But those sessions have become sacred space.

We’re learning how to manage the intrusive thoughts that creep in when things get quiet. We’re learning how to remember Freya before cancer—her laugh, her spark, the way she filled a room. We’re learning that grief isn’t something you conquer. It’s something you learn to walk with.

For our kids, especially, healing has needed more than just words.

Through the Center’s art therapy program, Winnie and Miles were invited to create pieces in memory of Freya. Art gave them a language for feelings that don’t fit neatly into sentences. What started as a one-time class has become something woven into our home. We’re building art and creative expression into our family rhythm—painting, writing and building. We’re creating as a way to process the weight of what we’ve gone through and what’s still missing. It’s helping us hold both love and loss at the same time.

The Monthly Tween Art Meetup has also been a gift. Each month, kids gather with an art therapist to explore new techniques and themes. But it’s more than an art class. It’s a safe space. A space where no one has to explain why things feel heavy. It’s a space where being “the sibling of a child with cancer” hasn’t made them different—it’s made them understood.

And then there are the moments that feel almost ordinary, in the best way. Last spring, Winnie was invited to a kids’ Spring Break outing at Nova Quarter Horses in Mokena. She toured the barn, learned how to care for the horses, and was led on horseback through the indoor arena. There is something grounding about being near a horse—their steadiness, their quiet strength. In that space, away from clinics and conversations about treatment, she was just a kid again.

Cancer takes so much. These experiences gently give something back.

Because of their donors, volunteers, and community, families like ours receive this support without cost—at a time when we could least afford another burden. Cancer changed our family forever. We are grateful for the way The Cancer Support Center has walked alongside us. In the middle of fear. In the depths of grief. And now, in the slow, sacred work of healing.

We are so grateful to the Cancer Support Center for their support. If you want to support the amazing work they do, you can donate to this amazing organization here.

-Melissa