Patricia stood in the hallway of her children’s school on “Meet the Teacher” night, tears in her eyes. She had just read what her daughter, Natalie, wrote on an assignment asking what she was nervous about for the upcoming school year as she started fourth grade.

“I’m excited for basketball,” Natalie wrote. “But I’m also sad, because going into fourth grade was the last step to completely passing all the events that happened in Nathan’s short life.”

Patricia felt the now-familiar sensation of her heart breaking. Nathan, Natalie’s older brother, had never finished third grade – he died of a rare cancer called Wilms tumor in 2022. He was 8 years old. Entering fourth grade meant Natalie had officially passed every milestone Nathan ever reached.

“Too Happy To Be Sick”

When Nathan was just 2 years old, something odd started happening - he’d spike a high fever, but it would go away after a few days. Then, it would happen again. But Nathan would always return to his goofy, stubborn, energetic self.

“The cycle went on and on,” Patricia said. She took Nathan to the doctor repeatedly, but was dismissed every time. “I was actually told to put my thermometer away, and that he’s too happy to be sick.”

When Nathan spiked yet another fever, Patricia took him to the emergency room. The response was different this time - doctors immediately ordered a blood transfusion, and Nathan was transferred to the nearest children’s hospital. It had never crossed Patricia’s mind that children get cancer - but it was becoming clear that cancer was exactly what they were dealing with.

Nathan’s big brother, Jeffery, who was 4 years old at the time, asked Patricia if Nathan was going to die.

“We didn’t know anything at that point; we didn’t know what kind of tumor he had or what his prognosis would be,” Patricia said. “So I had to tell Jeffery, ‘I don’t know.’”

The Fight Ahead

Nathan was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a very rare type of kidney cancer with a survival rate upwards of 90% in kids. But when it comes back after initial treatment, that number plummets. In those cases, eight in 10 kids with very high-risk relapsed Wilms tumor will not survive.

Nathan’s family had every reason to believe he would survive this cancer. He completed treatment and was cancer-free for two years – until doctors found tumors in both of his lungs in May 2019.

“I can close my eyes and relive that entire day, every single detail,” Patricia said. “I knew this relapse would ultimately take his life - even though I hoped he would be in the small percent who survived, I knew better.”

Nathan’s community rallied around him as he fought for his life. When the local police force learned that Nathan’s cancer had returned, they gathered a caravan of police vehicles, fire trucks, and more to drive past Nathan’s house to show support. He was the guest of honor at the local Christmas parade, where he, Jeffery, and Natalie received special presents from Santa himself. During several different events to raise funds and show support, community members donned orange shirts - Nathan’s favorite color - to show him they were standing with him.

Nathan’s incredible doctors at Geisinger Medical Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center gave him the best possible chance against cancer. During his six years of treatment, he underwent…

• 200+ rounds of chemotherapy
• 20+ surgeries
• 48 rounds of radiation
• 100+ blood transfusions

His family and his doctors searched for any new drug, any clinical trial that could save him – but because of a lack of research, the lifesaving treatment he needed simply didn’t exist.

“Throughout Nathan’s treatment, I left no rock unturned. Anything that could have potentially helped him, we looked into,” Patricia said.

In the end, the treatments available to Nathan weren’t enough to cure him. He passed away on January 6, 2022. Instead of wearing black, his family asked everyone to wear Nathan’s favorite orange or any other bright colors to his funeral to represent the vibrant life he had lived.

Love With Some Place to Go

Since Nathan’s passing, a quote from author Jamie Anderson has resonated with Patricia: “Grief is just love with no place to go.” As she watches Jeffery and Natalie grow up, she can’t help but wonder what it would be like if Nathan were still beside them. Every day, she thinks, “He should be here.” As soon as she felt ready, she started looking for ways to pour her love for Nathan into something new - something that would do good in the world, even though her son had left it.

In late 2024, Patricia and her family teamed up with Children’s Cancer Research Fund and began championing the organization’s research project led by Michael V. Ortiz, MD, Nathan’s oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Dr. Ortiz is spearheading a multi-center clinical trial that is testing a new drug against very high-risk relapsed Wilms tumor.

With funding from Children’s Cancer Research Fund donors, Dr. Ortiz has been able to expand the trial to eight new sites: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, St. Louis, and Washington, DC. He and his team plan to enroll 21 patients with very high-risk relapsed Wilms tumor. Not only will this trial give 21 children an option that didn’t exist for Nathan, but if it is successful, it could be a breakthrough treatment for many more. Because of the love that his family has poured into pushing this trial forward, kids like Nathan have real hope for survival.

“There’s no hope for us. We’ve already lost our child,” Patricia said. “But the next child, who was diagnosed yesterday, who is diagnosed tomorrow… they need that hope. I don’t want those families to be us. I want them to be able to hold all of their children tight.”

In October 2024, Nathan’s parents and siblings attended the 2024 Forbes | SHOOK Top Advisor Summit, where they shared their story with nearly a thousand of the nation’s top financial advisors in an effort to raise funds for Dr. Ortiz’s trial. Their vulnerability and determination helped raise $1 million from donors who were moved by Nathan’s experience.

Nathan’s family is sure of one thing: the end of his life doesn’t mean the end of his story. In the face of grief, they’re showing grace, gratitude, and generosity. And they are asking all of us to do the same. Funding for rare cancers like Wilms tumor is hard to come by. For researchers like Dr. Ortiz, funding from private nonprofits is the only way to push their lifesaving research forward. To fund research that can save lives, it’s going to take all of us.

“I took all my birthday money and all my tooth fairy money and put it in a jar and donated it to Nathan’s doctor,” said Natalie. “I hope Nathan’s doctor will eventually find a cure for cancer.”