Cinnamon Roll Sunday: A Child's Story of Anticipatory Grief

Nothing has been the same since Noah's Daddy got cancer -except Cinnamon Roll Sunday. Every week, Noah and Daddy walk to the corner market and bring home fresh cinnamon rolls and the paper. They cuddle up on the couch and read the Sunday comics together while savoring each sweet bite. When Daddy's hair falls out, he and Mamma explain what is happening, answering the many questions popping up in Noah's mind. Noah worries Daddy will die. He imagines shredding the cancer to pieces. Noah stomps on his cinnamon roll in protest. Things aren't going the way they are supposed to! At school, Noah's counselor encourages him to draw each of his mixed-up feelings. Noah shares with his best friend, Ben, that Daddy is too sick to coach their team. Grandma walks to the market with Noah that week. Things are changing fast. Cinnamon Roll Sunday tells the story of seven-year-old Noah as he copes and adapting to the many changes implicit to a loved-one's serous illness. The story spans from just after Daddy's cancer diagnosis until after his death, and is told with tenderness, playfulness, and in a voice of resiliency. What do you do when someone is very sick and might die? Anticipatory grief is a difficult issue to address as it counters the cultural taboo of talking about death with kids, especially if it might not happen or hasn't yet happened. Cinnamon Roll Sunday answers that question for children, and in doing so, breaks the taboo, and bridge this gap in the field of grief. Cinnamon Roll Sunday demonstrates through story how to cope with the uncertainty of illness in a family and how to have healthy, age-appropriate conversations about difficult subjects. Cinnamon Roll Sunday is intended to be read aloud by a parent, teacher, helper, or therapist to school-age children who have (had) a loved-one who is seriously ill. It acts as a springboard for healthy communication and a normalizes the many mixed up thoughts and feelings indicative of anticipatory grief.