Critter’s Choice: Book written by Cherrie Adams after cancer death of son Christopher to help raise research funds
As ‘Critter’ Adams lay in hospital dying from brain cancer, he made a wishlist for life. Now it’s part of a book his mother wrote to process his death.
Lifestyle
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When brain cancer killed her youngest son at the age of 26, counsellor Cherrie Adams found writing was a way to process her grief.
She had one piece published in Psychology Today and another in a collection of works called Fear and Courage, then thought about writing a book to raise funds for research.
After all her late son Christopher, or ‘Critter’ as he was known to family and friends, had already set up the fundraising platform: “Strong Enough To Live”.
“I didn’t want to write a story that told his medical journey, on just the last 11 months of this beautiful man’s very large life,” Mrs Adams said.
“My intention was that by reframing the actual events, I would be able to offer Critter the empowerment and choices that he had been deprived of by his disease.”
The book “Critter’s Choice” looks and reads like a fantasy novel, which begins in another universe and takes readers on a journey through space and time.
It comes back down to Earth with a thud in Part 2, describing Critter’s last 24 hours on Earth in detail and concluding with the choice, a life-and-death decision, to stay or to go.
The epilogue contains Critter’s Wish List, which acts as a reminder to those left behind: ‘Live life fully’.
“We can lament when we lose somebody and we can be sad and that sadness never goes, I mean let’s be honest,” Mrs Adams said.
“But why don’t we do the living that we want to do, while we’re alive? There’s always this thought that ‘One day I’ll do it, I’ll be happy when I lose five kilos, or I’ll go travelling when I retire at 65.
“I really wanted to say to his friends, without saying it, just do it, go for it, do the things that Critter didn’t get to do, you go travelling, you hike Everest, you go play in a footy grand final.”
The book’s illustrator, Lucinda Gregory, became a family friend after she had brain surgery in the same year as Critter (2015), with the same surgeon. That surgery left her with permanent right-side injury, but she learnt to draw with her left hand instead.
All proceeds are donated to the Neurosurgical Research Foundation for brain cancer research in SA.
The Foundation says brain cancer kills more children than any other disease, and more adults under 40 than any other cancer, yet remains one of the most underfunded areas of research.
Critter‘s Choice (Busybird Publishing) costs $32.80 including postage at bit.ly/ccaus
CRITTER’S WISH LIST
1. Leave hospital and NEVER come back because I am 100 per cent healthy!
2. Find the best Pho restaurant in Adelaide (or the world!) and order the biggest bowl ever.
3. Get back into the gym and be SO WELL, so recovered, that I would lift the heaviest weight and my great mate Jack would be envious and goggle-eyed with surprise!
4. Pull on my number 19 footy guernsey and play footy again with my beloved navy Blues. Maybe I will take a specky mark, and then kick an impossible goal to clinch the Grand Final! (Well, Mum did say I could choose ANYTHING!)
5. Go to the animal shelter and choose a sweet-as dog. A lab or a boxer who I will call Boss. We will be inseparable.
6. Move out of home. Yeah, a place of my own with Boss where my friends can come over for frothies and a barbie.
7. Buy a new suit, shirt, tie, shoes and grab my favourite girl for a fabulous night out on the town. The best restaurant, clubs and dancing, not coming home till the sun comes up.
8. Travel overseas again. Maybe this time on a one-way ticket and just see it ALL.
9. Oh, I need to get my licence back. Once my eyesight improves after all the surgeries.
10. Go on a road trip with Boss to the Kimberleys, camping under the Milky Way. Throw the fishing lines in the back.
11. Go to lots of music concerts with my brothers and mates, here and overseas.
12. Climb to Everest Base Camp with Matty and Russ like we planned, once I am well. How awesome will it be to stand, the three of us, on the top of the world!
13. Be the BEST uncle ever to Archie and to the new little boy due in February, and any more that might come along!
14. Go to THE MCG with family and mates and watch Collingwood, the Mighty Magpies, win another Grand Final!
15. Buy a house with a big backyard for the kids and for friends.
16. Find the woman that I can give my complete heart and soul to.
17. Be a husband.
18. Be a dad myself!
19. Be the best ME I can be.
20. LIVE LIFE FULLY.
