The Patrick R. McMullen "Smile In My Heart" Foundation

06/06/2026

Lake and family time are good for the soul. Happy Summer.❤️

06/04/2026

This. Written by someone else, but the reality of childhood cancer.

“I just wish I could tell Bryson how sorry I am.

Sorry for every owie. Every poke. Every procedure. Every medicine that made him feel like s**t. Every vital check he refused. Every day spent in a hospital instead of outside playing.

Sorry for every time we had to use force to hold him down. Sorry for every trip back to the hospital no matter how much he cried, screamed, and pleaded not to go. Sorry for being the bad guys. Sorry for a life that was the furthest thing from normal.

I’m especially sorry for the lies we had to tell him. Like, “No, you’re not going to die.”

Parenting a medically complex child is a heartbreaking contradiction. We didn’t want to do any of those things any more than he did. We didn’t want to make his life harder. We were just doing what we believed would give him the best chance to keep living.

But he died anyway. And when your child dies after that kind of fight, everything else feels like it dissolves into thin air.

If treatment had worked, there would be a narrative. A payoff. A reason. You could point to a healthy teenager someday and say, “That’s why we did it.”

Instead, he was failed.

That’s a specific type of survivors guilt.

The guilt of knowing your child suffered because you wanted them to keep fighting. The guilt of wondering if it was all worth it. The guilt of him enduring everything and we still couldn’t save him.

That part of grief I don’t know how to put down.”

06/02/2026

04/05/2026

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter.✝️

04/03/2026

“Sometimes
I just look up,
Smile, and say
I know that was You”
– Unknown

03/17/2026

02/04/2026

Thankful this finally passed and will be signed into law. It will give more kids a chance in their fight against cancer.💛

11/27/2025

Happy Thanksgiving to all!❤️Remembering those no longer with us, but always in our hearts.