A letter from a child.

I received a letter this week from a little girl and it about broke my heart. She was 13 years old, and her Mom passed away from breast cancer around March 15 th of 2013. She asked me in her letter a question I was not prepared to answer. Her question was, Do I think that Mom died because she would not eat healthy, not take her vitamins and because she was always stressed out?

First of all most adults will not ask a question like this, or most likely ever think of the reason why, as adults are usually thinking about the "now what" scenario. The letter went on to say that she used to always tell her Mom to slow down and relax, and how she would run her a bath to have her soak after a long day at work, but her Mom was always too busy. She said she had started cooking to make things easier at home, as I am sure there was no father in the picture, and the cooking was to help her Mom out. She said her neighbor would take her grocery shopping when she went, and she said she always tried to get healthy food as her Mom was so tired and stressed out. She would cook, but Mom wanted her coffee and sweets and never really seem to eat anything that was good.

It took me a while to respond to the little girl whose name was Mya. When I finally had my thoughts together, I sent her the following response.

Dear Mya,
I am so sorry for your loss and I hope you are able to understand some of the things that I am bringing to you in this letter. First of all, you sound like a wonderful daughter, and so mature for your age. You are a caring and supportive young lady, and I am sure your Mother lived a lot longer due to your outpouring of love that you gave her every single day. To answer your question yes, diet and stress are large factors that can cause disease to spread and manifest in the body, but they are not the only reasons. Many times it is in the blood lines and is genetic through out family blood lines. Sometimes it can be environmental where once again we may not have a chance to prevent it. I think the answer is yes, taking better care of ourselves is always number one in priorities and yes, a positive attitude and being able to relax and deal with stress are also very important. I would like to wish you the best in your future, and my thoughts and prayers are coming to you as we speak.