In 1980, when Linda Bremner’s 8-year-old son, Andrew, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and hospitalized, he received a lot of mail. The letters rained down: cards and letters from his Boy Scout troop, his Sunday school class, his classmates at school and relatives from out of state.
“That mail meant so much to him. It was so special to him because whoever heard of anybody writing to a child?” Bremner says.
When Andy came home from the hospital and the mail ceased, it was Bremner who played rainmaker and stopped the drought.
“I sent him cards and short letters. I cut out comics from the newspaper and sent him toys from cereal boxes, and I signed each one, `Your secret pal,’ ” Bremner says. “Andy knew I was his secret pal but loved getting the cards and letters anyway. He looked for that mail, he asked for that mail, and sometimes he demanded that mail.”
In 1984, Andy, by then 12, died of pulmonary hemorrhage after a battle with leukemia. Bremner says she died a little too.
“The pain was so horrible, I saw no reason to live,” she says.
She tried to rouse herself from her despair for the sake of her remaining children.
“I had two young children who needed me, and so I decided to make an attempt,” she says. “I felt that what would get me through was to deal with Andy’s things right away.”
While going through her son’s possessions, Bremner found a box that was her son’s legacy to her.
“I pulled out this Reebok shoebox, which was in his closet, and in it were the cards and letters I had sent Andy over the years. And right on top was his address book with 20 names in it, of children with cancer and leukemia he had met at cancer camp. I felt that it was a deliberate plan of Andy’s that the letters and the address book be found together; I felt it was a message from Andy that he wanted me to write to those children.”
Bremner thought at the time that she would write each of the children one letter to finish what she considered her son’s unfinished business.
“I was halfway down the list when I got a reply from a 12-year-old boy. He wrote, `Thank you for writing me, I didn’t know anyone knew I lived.’ That’s all he wrote. And I cried in a way I had never cried before, not for Andy or for me, but for this little boy I didn’t know. I knew at that moment that I would never stop writing.”
Bremner says writing letters to those sick children is the only time she remembers being happy then.
“I told them that in the gumball machine of life there must be green because that was my favorite kind. I wrote and told them that the cat was having kittens, and I suspected she would have them in the closet, and that, when she had the kittens, I’d write and tell them what she had. I told them the fun stuff. I cut comics out of papers. I sent toys from the cereal box. I sent them jokes and cards.”
In the process, Bremner says, she regained her will to live.
“I didn’t want to die in a depression. I wanted to live. Seeing Andy die showed me how fragile life was, that I couldn’t linger, that I didn’t have time to waste, so I wrote,” she says. “I’d write on the bus riding to work. I’d write during lunch break. It didn’t make any sense at all, but I couldn’t stop. I was obsessed. Writing to those children was my chocolate bar, and my salvation.”
During that period of self-redemption, Bremner also found the strength to evaluate her marriage, which was in dire straits, and to contemplate leaving her husband.
“When parents have to deal with their children dying, if they have a good marriage, they come out of it closer, more bonded. My marriage was bad, and Andrew’s death made me see it for what it was. I got to a point where I didn’t feel as afraid about leaving it as I had before.”
After filing for divorce, moving into a new home, and settling her children in school, Bremner’s concern over the next three years was to get the mail out.
“It overtook my life. Every cent I made went to postage. I would refund empty soda bottles that I found in the common area of my apartment building. I’d do anything for stamps. I sold my wedding ring, my china, whatever I didn’t need,” she says. “Nothing seemed to matter as long as I could get the mail out.”
All 20 children on Andy’s list died a long time ago, but there is never a shortage of children for Bremner to write to. She says she has written to more than 3,000 children around the nation since her first mailing to her son’s friends.
Through Love Letters, her not-for-profit organization, Bremner and her 40 volunteers send more than 60,000 cards, letters and packages each year to children suffering from catastrophic illnesses. Volunteers work more than 400 hours each week to send more than 1,500 letters to children on the list. In addition, special birthday mailings go out to more than 100 children each month.
Through word of mouth and through cancer (and other) support groups for sick children and their families, Bremner’s mailing list gets larger each year, even though many of the children die.
“We lose about 200 children each year because they die, or all too rarely if they recover,” Bremner says.
Children on Love Letters’ mailing list get two Christmas mailings, one in December and one in July.
“Some children need a little Christmas all year long,” Bremner says, “and for children who are going through an especially difficult time, we make sure there is something in the mail every day.”
Bremner’s childlike sense of fun means that children on her list are guaranteed delightful surprises when they open a Love Letters package.
“We’ll fill a box with confetti and glitter and put in heart-shaped stickers or stamps, or giraffe pencils, or a Barbie doll, or a joke book, or a teddy bear with a funny face, and always, a handwritten note,” she says.
Love Letters has never received any grants, depending on individual donations and volunteers, and Bremner says it is a miracle that the mailings go out at all.
“Our volunteers will do bake sales, or T-shirt sales, or we’ll get private donations where someone will donate toys or reach into their pockets for money,” she says.
Bremner is seeking volunteers to send out the mailings, as well as letter writers, and donations of toys and mailing costs.
“When a child is sick, many people don’t write because they don’t know what to say,” Bremner says. “But can you imagine what it must be like to be a child and in a hospital or at home with a serious illness? Hospitals are big scary places. Chemotherapy and radiation make them lose their hair, their looks, their identity.
“A letter can be the one thing that makes them feel special. Take the time and write to them. Your five minutes could make that child’s whole day.”
Bremner is realistic about what she can do for children suffering from serious illnesses.
“I realized at the beginning that I had very limited skills and resources, and that I was not going to a research lab to find the cure for cancer or take away a child’s pain. What I can do is write a letter that can make a smile on a day that is gray for a child. It is very simple and very basic, and it is what I’m doing with the rest of my life.”
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To volunteer, make a donation or add a child to the mailing list, write or call Love Letters, 837 S. Westmore Ave., Lombard, IL 60148; phone: 630-620-1970.
