A Mother's Message (2006) 

I lost my oldest son, Reid, to cancer last year.  He was only 20.  To quote an esteemed physician who knew my son very well, Reid was “…a wonderful, truly wonderful young man.” 

I miss him more and more each day, something I didn’t think was possible.  In some ways it feels worse than the paralyzing grief of those first few months after he died.  I miss him not only for myself, but also for my husband, for Reid’s only sibling, Weston, and for Reid’s significant other, Bethany.  Reid’s death has left behind an impossible pain in those who loved him.  You see it in the glisten in their eyes at those moments you know they are remembering him.  You hear it in their voices, as they struggle to get the words out when we talk about Reid. 

I lost not only a son, but other things as well.  I lost the future I had anticipated and planned with him.  I lost the relationship my two sons had with one another; I was so proud of the love and respect they had for each other and was so anxious to see that continue to blossom as they became adults together.  I lost the normalcy that should be in our lives today.  I will somehow adapt to a life without Reid, but I will never 'get over it'.

Reid was standing on the doorstep of what was about to be the best times of his life when he was taken from us.  Although he had already inspired so many and had already achieved so much in his short life, he was still bursting with the potential to do so much more for this world. 

What happened to Reid is a tragedy, as simple as that.  Sadly, he was not alone.  Of the young men and women with whom Reid shared so many hours in Boston’s best cancer hospitals and clinics, only a tiny fraction of them are today still alive.  And their futures are very uncertain.

This has got to stop!  And that’s where the Reid R Sacco Memorial Foundation is stepping in.  To do something about the absurd shortage of effective treatments for the cancers that kill adolescents and young adults.  Our intent is partly to inform others of this need, but more importantly it is to help fund research to find better treatments—and someday a cure—for the cancers that predominantly affect adolescents and young adults.  To fund research into why these cancers are so deadly in these vibrant, robust young people.  To fund research into the next generation of agents and approaches specifically tuned to the aggressive cancers within these strong bodies.  Maybe the answer is in immunology.  Maybe the answer is in hybrid therapies linking molecular biology and traditional agents.  We have to find the answer because we all have an investment in our children, some of whom are our own.  And in their children, some of whom may be our own grandchildren.  They are the future and it’s simply not right that they die from this disease.

I was the kind of woman who, once she became a mother, lived for her children.  Now I live for the day when a physician writes to me to say that because of the Reid R Sacco Memorial Foundation -- either through its influence or through the research it helped fund -- young patients with cancer are now beating their cancers routinely.  I now live for the day that I, and the many young people who now call the Reid R Sacco Memorial Foundation their own, learn that the Foundation’s mission has been accomplished.

I consider the Foundation to be a community affair.  After all, its mission is to protect our young people from cancer.  If it succeeds at that, then it has also protected families from this tragedy.  And in doing that, it has protected the community from that tragedy as well.

I miss Reid so much.  That will never change.  But success in treating cancers in young adults MUST change.   And it will.  And you will be a force in that change.

Lorraine Sacco (July 2006)