LEE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER CHRIS PATRICCA, ADOPTED 13-YEAR-OLD GRADY, AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER. THE PATRICCA’S ARE A STRONG VALERIE’S HOUSE FAMILY.

Estero parents, Chris and Tom Patricca first met Grady and Nicki Bonin as neighbors in Southwest Florida in 2013. Grady became friends with the Patricca boys, Jack and Thomas. Chris and Nicki also became instant friends. Then, Nicki became ill with metastatic melanoma and immediately started cancer treatments. Grady was spending more time with the Patricca’s. One day, Nicki, knowing her condition was worsening, made a huge ask: “Can Grady come live with you?” she said. Nicki wanted Grady to live with the Patricca’s permanently after she passed.

Nicki had planned a week when she was going to accompany Grady to the Patricca’s with all his belongings and to get him settled. She had never really explained to her son she was terminally ill. She wanted to spare him the pain. That week, she became very sick and couldn’t make the trip. Grady’s grandmother came, instead.

“It’s an amazing story,” Chris said. “She had the strength to provide what Grady needed but she knew she didn’t have the fight. She couldn’t emotionally handle saying goodbye to her son.”

Grady, only about eight years old at the time, knew something was wrong with his mom, something wasn’t right or why else would he be sent to live with someone else? Nicki died not long after Grady came to live in Bonita Springs with his instant family.

“Nicki hadn’t told him she was dying,” Chris said. “We had anticipated as much as we could, but we didn’t think about how we were going to tell him his mother had died.”

The Patricca’s had that gut-wrenching conversation with Grady. “He cried. He asked for some time alone. He blamed himself. He was angry with himself for not knowing more,” Chris said. “Grady is very intuitive, and he thought he should have been smart enough to know of his mom’s dire condition. Then, he could have helped. “He blamed himself for that. We had to work through that.”

During this difficult time, Chris had already contacted Valerie’s House. Grady began attending sessions with Tom. In the meantime, inside the Patricca household, Chris knew Grady needed time to adjust to his new family and the house rules. She knew there was a delicate balance there between her other children, who also were adjusting, seeing Grady able to “get away with things” they couldn’t.

“I remember about four or five months after Grady moved in, I yelled at him,” Chris said. “I had a conversation with myself to keep from yelling at him. ‘Maybe he can’t handle me yelling at him,’ I thought. He needed more caring, more loving. But then I realized, I am his parent, and I can’t hold back in these areas. I am doing him a disservice.”

After a conversation with Valerie’s House Founder & CEO, Angela Melvin, who also lost her mother when she was a child, Chris and Tom sat down with the children and reinforced the house rules. Those rules applied to Grady as well. “I am tapping reserves as a parent I didn’t even know I had,” Chris said. “I am mastering the art of choosing battles. Each kid has different needs.”

Grady also has benefitted from a new and valuable mentoring program at Valerie’s House. Volunteer and board member Mike McMurray has mentored Grady for the past six months. Mike, who lost his dad when he was 9-years-old, and Grady talk regularly, share their thoughts of loss and life and are both strengthened by their conversations.

Grady is thriving within the family and at Valerie’s House. In fact, after the coronavirus made staying at home and social distancing the new normal, Grady had trouble adjusting to not seeing his friends and talking about life at Valerie’s House. It wasn’t long before Valerie’s House went virtual on Zoom and continued with sessions.

“There was a lightness to his face after the Valerie’s House virtual meeting,” Chris said. “He walked away from that meeting with a bounce in his step that had not been there before. He was more interactive with the people in our house. He walked up to me immediately and hugged me. He immediately reached out to schedule a Zoom meeting for his Dungeons & Dragons club.

Grady’s connection with the children at Valerie’s House is a lifeline. “Those kids have built such deep bonds and he gets to interact with them.”

Please consider helping Valerie’s House continue to provide the needed love and care for grieving children like Grady, by Giving Today.