Miracle in Amesbury: Lucy's Love Bus
A few weeks ago I had the very good fortune to meet Beecher Grogan, the mother of the young girl who founded Lucy's Love Bus before losing her life to leukemia at age 12. By all accounts, Lucy was an amazingly strong, lively, thoughtful and funny young girl who saw in her own illness the needs of others who were experiencing similar sufferings. She reached out to these other children and sought to make a difference in their lives in ways that few adults would have the character, strength and insight to do.
Before Lucy died in 2006, she asked Beecher, her mother, to continue to her work, and thus Lucy's Love Bus was formed.
Beecher is an amazing woman. She struggled through a very tough period after losing Lucy but remained determined to carry Lucy's Love Bus forward. In the last year, thanks not only to her tireless efforts but the work of many in the surrounding community, Lucy's Love Bus is providing support and aid to children with leukemia and other cancers in the form of comfort and relief giving massages, acupuncture and reiki treatments. In September they raised a substantial amount of money at the Woodsom Farm Butterfly "Fly Away" event - a result of very well coordinated efforts by teams of Amesbury High School students.
In accompanying Beecher for a few days as she dealt with a several situations, I quickly realized that a key element of what Lucy's Love Bus does is providing emotional support to the afflicted children and their families. Last week a child who had spoken at the Fly Away went into a critical phase of her cancer and was hospitalized with next to no hope of further survival. Her family was notified that she was dying. Beecher went out to the hospital in Worcester to talk to the child and her family.
I heard Beecher talk to the mother about the need to tell her young daughter that she (the mother) was going to be okay, and that it was alright for the girl to die. The daughter was concerned that she was failing her parents by dying. I know that Beecher had to tell the girl what her real condition was and what she had to expect. Beecher listened to the girl's 10 year old brother and brought him back into a central role. Beecher was instrumental in helping this family reconnect with each other to deal with what was happening.
The hospital staff wasn't prepared to offer this level of assistance. Lucy's Love Bus arranged for the child to go home, arranged for hospice and paid for home health care. They bought things for the household, gifts for the girl and for her younger brother. The girl was asked what she wanted, things were provided for her happiness. Lucy's Love Bus bought her an inexpensive video camera so that she could record the last days of her life with her family and her family would remember that everything possible was done to give her comfort and joy with them during this time.
Beecher won't take credit for anything that she does. Her daughter Lucy has stayed with her, and the knowledge and experience of being Lucy's Mom is what drives Beecher and what she passes on to support these families. Beecher works full time besides managing Lucy's Love Bus and we need to help Lucy's Love Bus to find the resources to support volunteers that Beecher can train to help these children and their families. Ideally, this should be Beecher's full focus.
The little girl we have spoken about here is named Miranda, and Miranda has expressed the wish that Lucy's Love Bus help children like herself be able to spend their last days at home rather than in a hospital where they can't be helped. A new program within Lucy's Love Bus to achieve this much needed goal has been christened "Miranda's Miracle".
The truest miracle here is Beecher's ability and willingness to reach out to these children and their families and guide them through their illness, sharing with them the difficult and painful lessons she learned from Lucy, and providing them with physical and emotional tools to function through the most horrible crisis that most of us can imagine experiencing in our lifetime. There is another truly amazing young woman involved here: Lucy's younger sister, Jane, who reaches out with her Mom and in her own right does incredible things to help young cancer patients. You'll find Jane in action with her friends working to support Lucy's wish.
To find out more about Lucy's Love Bus, check out these links, or just google search. There's plenty online, with ways you can help, with volunteer efforts or donations. I am matching my clients' donations from my commissions on their transactions.
www.facebook.com/pages/Lucys-Love-Bus
http://activerain.com/blogsview/1867588/lucy-s-love-bus-helping-kids-with-cancer-amesbury-ma
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