CNN correspondent and journalist Rene Marsh shared an emotional Instagram post last Thursday, revealing that her 2-year-old son, Blake, had died after battling pediatric brain cancer.
Sharing a picture of her son smiling, Marsh addressed the post to Blake, who she also referred to lovingly as “Blakey.”
“In your 25 months on earth, you taught me how much strength I had stored up in reserve that I didn’t know I had,“ she wrote in the heartbreaking post. “You taught me endurance. You taught me a depth of love I have never experienced. You inspired me to keep going when I wanted to give up.”
Marsh continued to explain how proud she was to be Blake’s mother, saying, “I feel blessed and honored to have been your mom. I wish we had more time together, but I’m grateful for the time we had. In just two years, you mastered the ability to bring laughter and happiness into whatever room you were in.”
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Last year, Marsh wrote an op-ed for CNN, where she discussed the importance of wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how it can affect her son and others who suffer from weaker immune systems.
Urging the public to practice compassion and understanding, she wrote. “I know you want to celebrate graduations and birthdays, but there are moms and dads who pray every day for their child to live to see those life milestones.”
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In another opinion piece for CNN, Marsh wrote more extensively about her son’s battles this past February. She revealed that Blake’s brain cancer had been in remission for six months and that he also got to ring the bell, signifying that he was done with chemotherapy.
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Unfortunately for him and his family, though, they discovered in November that not only had his brain cancer returned, but it had also spread out. She also brought light to lack of attention childhood cancer patients often receive, especially since the pandemic began last year, reporting “Because of the small amount of funding pediatric cancer researchers receive from the federal government, progress relies heavily on funds from philanthropic organizations and those donations have sharply declined during the pandemic.”
Now, Marsh and her husband, Kedric Payne, face the difficult loss of their son, who they welcomed in March 2019. Our hopes and thoughts are with the Marsh-Payne family as they manage this hard and unimaginable time.
