Walking into and through the newest building is like visiting a nice hotel. The kitchen and dining area is also an inviting place, which is where I met some of the families who call the Ronald McDonald House their home. There's the couple from the Tri-Cities area whose daughter was just diagnosed with cancer. The father goes back to the Tri-Cities during the week to work. The mother stays here in Seattle seven days a week to be with their daughter. The daughter stoically talks about her battle with an insidious disease, and how it's nice to meet new people at the house. By now she's probably made lots of friends.
And there's the 4-year-old girl from Whidbey Island who spent the past nine months in intensive chemotherapy at Children's. Her mother, during that time, met two other Whidbey Island families at Ronald McDonald House who have small children in treatment for cancer.
It's a small world in a weird way.
We all bear some kind of medical burden in our lifetimes, either as the patient or the relative of a patient who is sick or disabled. But few things can be tougher than to see a child ill, in a tough battle against a life-threatening disease. It can make you cry.
But it makes you glad that there are places like the Ronald McDonald House that serve as a refuge and relief for the families who need help and hope in trying times.