'Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings'
Book helps children cope when someone they love has cancer
BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer

This photo of Nanci Hersh and sons Griffin (l) and Nate, then 5 and 3, shows the boys wearing butterfly wings so that they could accompany their mother on her journey through breast cancer.

Take heart. There's hope. And help for anyone who has to explain to a child that someone they love has been diagnosed with cancer.

The help comes from the message of a tender and beautiful book written and illustrated by two cousins living 2,000 miles apart.

Middletown artist Nanci Hersh and her cousin, Ellen McVicker, a teacher in Colorado, have created a charming and disarming children's book that addresses a young child's fears when confronted with the cancer of a loved one, especially a parent.

"Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings: When Someone You Love Has Cancer" is designed to be a "hopeful, helpful book for kids."

Hersh's sweet and sensitive drawings and McVicker's moving story written in practical, accessible language should calm the fears of any child and awaken the child in any adult.

The book's symbolic painterly butterfly flits through the book like a spirit guide.

Hersh's sons Griffin and Nate were 3 and 5 at the time of her diagnosis. (They are 7 and 9 now.) She knew she was going to be ill for a while and didn't know how to tell her children.

While she was pondering that question, she received a call from her cousin, Ellen, in Colorado.

Hersh said that although she and her cousin lived near each other in New Jersey while growing up, they were not close.

"She moved to Colorado and I went to Hawaii, and we each had two boys," she said. "Now I talk to her twice a day. It's amazing the way we feed off each other."

McVicker explained that when she heard that her cousin had cancer, she called her and asked if there was anything she could do for her.

"Nanci assured me that she was well taken care of, adding that she was not at all afraid of the cancer or the journey upon which she was to embark, but what she did struggle with was how she would tell her boys about the cancer."

McVicker said, "The next morning when I awoke, I remember lying in bed half asleep and reading sentences in my mind that I could put into a text for Nanci to share with her boys. That night I sat down at the computer and in one-and-a-half hours I had written a text that Nanci could read to her boys, written in the voice of a child."

She sent the text to Hersh, and two days later she heard from Hersh that she had read the words to her children.

"I laid on the bed with my boys and read it to them, and Ellen, they got it," Hersh said.

"I have had many people in my life afflicted with cancer - I still do," McVicker said. "In fact, it was the recent death of a friend of mine that really helped bring the butterfly alive in our book. She told me, 'When I die, every time you see a butterfly, that will be me watching over you.'

"When I shared this with Nanci, she put a butterfly into one of her pictures, and that was it for me. I knew that I wanted the butterfly to be the child and that it needed to flutter its wings across every page of our story."

McVicker asked Hersh to use the butterfly image throughout the book, and the request resonated with Hersh.

"I used the image of a chrysalis, just before becoming a butterfly, in an etching I created after I was diagnosed with breast cancer," she said.

McVicker said her background in special education helped her define what needed to be said and how to say it.

"For almost all of my life I have worked with emotionally disturbed and learning-disabled children, children who didn't often have the words to say what they were thinking, or were too afraid to ask for what they needed. I had to be their voice. I had to show them how to talk about feelings and how to advocate for themselves," she explained.

So finding the words for Nanci to use was not difficult.

"When Nanci told me her concerns about telling her boys, I knew that was one thing I could do for her, living so far away."

McVicker said that in creating the book, she and Hersh "are very in sync with each other. I would say something and she would draw it. I remember several times when she would draw a new image and send it to me. My heart would skip a beat as the new image popped onto the screen. She is amazing. She knew just how to illustrate my words."

In November 2002, when Hersh was diagnosed with breast cancer, Dr. Beth Deutch was the doctor who gave her the bad news. Deutch went to an art exhibit of Hersh's work and talked to her about collaborating on an art show that would be a fundraiser for breast cancer.

Deutch subsequently created an arts organization, The Art of Survival, to raise funds for breast cancer research and education.

On Sunday, Oct. 29, The Art of Survival will celebrate the launch of "Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings" with a concert at The Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank featuring Olivia Newton John, who successfully battled breast cancer in the 1990s.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the foundation.

In the foreword of the book, Deutch said that one of the first questions parents diagnosed with breast cancer will ask her is how should they explain it to their children.

"When Nanci first showed me this book, I cried. I cried as a mother of young children, for the clarity it brings to the young child's mind by answering the questions he may not yet be able to formulate and by calming the fears he may not yet recognize."

McVicker said, "I truly believe with all of my heart that Nanci and I have created a gift of hope for so many people."

For information about the book or to purchase a copy, visit www.butterflykisses-book.com or call Hersh at (732) 450-1854.