Moms Of Cancer-Stricken Children Get Spa Retreat At Ronald McDonald House
NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- It's Mothers Day all over again for a group of deserving moms. They spent Wednesday evening at the Ronald McDonald House in Manhattan, taking some time off from their children with cancer.
The annual spa retreat for the mothers with children battling cancer featured soothing music, massages and makeovers for the women. Currently, about 80 families are being looked after.
Shirley Hewitt came from Yorkshire, England to get an eyebrow arch and some lip gloss from a professional makeup artist.
"Coming down here, even if it's just for five minutes, 10 minutes, just makes you feel more human again," Hewitt told CBS 2's Derricke Dennis.
"The appreciation that you see from these people is incredible. The way they light up -- it's so rewarding," makeup artist Ramy Gafni said.
For most of the mothers at the retreat, it was a rare timeout from caring for their sick children, like 9-year-old Jack Bartolz, who seemed to brush off how sick he really is.
"I have marrow-blastoma," he said.
When asked how it affects him, Bartolz responded simply "it really doesn't."
The beauty of the event is that the moms get pampered from head to toe, step by step free of charge.
"Getting out of it for a little bit, it's very nice. Away from the hospital and the doctors, being treated, being pampered. It's very nice," Linda Fleming of Brownsville, Texas said.
And that is precisely the idea that organizers had -- to give mothers who give so much a way to feel special.
"Even though they bond together in sadness, they come together and bond in their joy and their relaxation, and remembering that they're women," said Meg Harrison of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.
