Kids & Family
‘Cotton Candy Clouds’ Book Sales Support Sick Children, Families
After her daughter died, a MD mom found a way to honor her life and help other families with sick kids. Her children's book is out now.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — Bryanna Kitchen was the kind of kid who would pause on a walk to admire a pretty leaf, or point out a line of ants walking and say, “I bet they’re a family on their way home!”
When kids picked on her at school and her mom, Kristena, asked her about it, Bryanna was confused. She could only think of nice things to say about the kids who excluded her. That’s just what kind of girl Bryanna was, her mom said.
Bryanna was 9 when her mom took her to the hospital for what doctors initially thought was a case of meningitis. After testing, they realized it was actually a form of cancer, and after more testing, honed in on the specific type that Bryanna had. It was early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
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Bryanna was in Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., as doctors worked to find a combination of treatments that could help her. She had gone into a coma, and sometimes the only way to know if she was responding to something was through an increase in her blood pressure.
There was a Catholic chapel in the hospital, right around the corner from Bryanna’s room. Kristena isn’t Catholic, but the room was beautiful and peaceful, and she wanted to bring some of that to Bryanna. She walked back to her daughter’s room and started to tell her about the castle right around the corner — the stories would become the beginning of Kristena’s recently released children’s book, “Cotton Candy Clouds.”
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The Burtonsville resident founded Bryanna’s Love, which is supported in part by sales of her book. Kristena said she hopes her organization connects parents and guardians of sick kids to resources such as free hotel rooms near treatment centers, and special excursions for kids who are sick and their siblings.
She hopes the children's book will be a respite for sick kids and their families — a reminder of the magic that can be hard to hold on to when you’re in a hospital.
“You're too sick to start thinking about fun things,” said Kristena. “You're too sick to look outside your windows for unicorns. The magic is gone in the hospital. It doesn't matter how much the team tries to make the magic there. You’re just too sick, you don't care.”
Kristena repeated the cotton candy story over and over to Bryanna during the last 10 days of her life. Bryanna died on Oct. 24, 2016, only a few months after she was diagnosed.
Kristena felt Bryanna’s presence around her and her other two children even after Bryanna's death. She wanted to find a way to honor Bryanna and the way she had lived her short life.
Inspiration For Children's Book
Still, she wanted to find a way to really tell people about Bryanna and the kind of kid she was, but nothing was coming to her.
“I just felt after Bryanna passed away that it was very important to share her story and share her love that everybody had,” said Kristena. “She was one of those kiddos that just always … found the light in the dark.”
Kristena got sick with COVID-19 last year. She was laying in her bed resting one day, and noticed that the usual sense she gets that Bryanna is around was gone. Then an idea hit her: a book.
“As I was laying there all of a sudden, the book just came to me,” said Kristena. “It’s as if she was saying ‘I've been here, but you’ve been too sick to notice. Go write the book.’ And I went downstairs and I wrote the book in an hour. It’s like she was just telling me it was time to write it.”
“Cotton Candy Clouds” tells a story about how kids can get through difficult things with love and their imaginations. It follows a little girl who has to go to the hospital, but remembers the magic of unicorns and her family's love. It’s on sale now, and all of the money made from it will go toward Bryanna’s Love, which is running out of money. The pandemic has been hard and Kristena has hopes that the sale of this book will allow them to keep supporting families with a sick child.
“We're out of money, so we have wait lists for all of our programs,” said Kristena. “We have families that need to go to clinical trials that we're having to say we can't help you. There's families that need snuggles and we can't send out packages, or siblings that really, really need their day of respite, and we can't help them. So my hope is that this book will bring in money and help fund all of these programs so that we can continue to help kids.”
The Impact of Bryanna’s Love
Kristena’s organization has three main components: Give Kids a Snuggle, Sibling Love and Home to Care. They give kids blankets and stuffed animals, fun outings with siblings, and money for transportation to and from treatment as well as lodging.
At a virtual book launch last week, families supported by Bryanna’s Love shared what it had meant to them. The parent of a little girl who was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer at age 2 said that the organization was what they needed. Their daughter, now six, is in remission.
“Bryanna’s Love came to our rescue when we needed them most,” wrote Taylor C. “This beautiful foundation helped us with lodging during covid when nothing else was open or available, food expenses and transportation. They made sure that every aspect of our trip was covered so I could focus on what was important, my daughter.”
Part of Bryanna’s Love’s success is that Kristena helps parents cut through some of the red tape that might prevent them from getting help from other organizations — if people are having trouble filling out forms, all they have to do is call. Kristena doesn’t want logistics such as getting a doctor’s signature to prevent people from getting the support they need.
Taylor C., the parent of the girl now in remission, said that Kristena was in touch with her for every part of the trip, and that Bryanna’s Love is more than an organization. Taylor said that Bryanna lives on through her mom, and the work that she’s doing for other people. That was Kristena’s goal.
Kristena said cancer does not stop when a child dies — she and her two other children have to deal with the loss of Bryanna every day, and Kristena has to deal with the feeling of not fitting into a community. Helping other people who are going through what she did is a way to cope with the loss of her daughter.
“You're no longer in the normal group of people — you're no longer in the cancer family group of people. You're in this unknown area of ‘you don't really fit into anywhere,’” she said. “So it's really important to me that my kids grow up a part of Bryanna's love so that they know that they're a part of something way bigger than us, and that we're helping so many people.”
How Can I Help?
The first way to help is to give money. Bryanna’s Love has a donation portal for anyone who wants to give. There are other ways to help, too: donate new stuffed animals, send Kristena codes for discounts to Uber and Lyft rides, or offer up a timeshare for a family to stay in if you have one. If you have a business you think would be a great fit for the siblings looking to do something fun, offer up your services.
Students can get involved in the ambassadors program, which helps Bryanna’s Love fundraise, run stuffed animal drives, and more. Bryanna’s Love is running an art auction beginning Monday, Sept. 13 to raise money.
“We have artwork from children actively in treatment for cancer, children in remission, children who lost a sibling to cancer, children who express themselves through art and want to help other children!” a Facebook post says. “They all have TALENT and HEART!”
Learn More About Bryanna's Legacy
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