"In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night."
- The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Our Story
The Matteo Shafer Legacy Fund was created in memory of our son Matteo. At 16 months of age, after a week of headaches, nausea and vomiting, Matteo was brought to the Alberta Children’s Hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The team at the ACH went into immediate action. Matteo had a resection of the tumor, and 6 weeks of radiation. Post diagnosis care required follow up MRI’s for 5 years, all of which were cancer-free. At the age of 7, at his final MRI, an abnormality was found on his scan. The cancer was back. Another surgery, round of radiation and this time chemotherapy. It all seemed to be working! Clear scans again! Until a year later, we received the devastating news that they weren’t clear anymore. In the early hours of July 17th, 2016 Matteo passed away. Our sweet boy was only 9 years old. He spent his last two weeks surrounded by the love of family, the support of friends, and the amazing care of the staff at the Rotary Flames House.
Matteo lived an inspirational life. We marched to the beat of his drum. We tapped to his tune. We danced and shook our bodies to his song. To say that our lives were made better by his presence would be an understatement. He was observant and thoughtful. Quick-witted and oh, so smart. Adult-like in thinking and behavior. He filled our hearts with so much joy. We remember his words and actions with love, but also with an indescribable ache. Our hearts are heavy in a way that is inexplicable and in a way we hope no one could truly understand. And so we have a choice: to focus on his absence (an absence that drowns us and makes it so difficult to breathe) or believe in his presence. When Matteo was physically here with us, he was a "crowd puller". He bonded people, he spun a web that caught the big and small, the old and young, the troubled and those at ease. The centre of our web is not physically here, but those bonds that he created are. Those bonds are his presence and we would be doing a disservice to his memory if we did nothing with the threads he spun.
The Matteo Shafer Legacy Fund was created to keep Matteo’s memory alive. We use it to try to fight the vicious beast who stole him from us, directing money to The Childhood Cancer Research Program at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, as well as “PROFYLE”, a division of the Terry Fox research institute that focuses on pediatric cancer. We also direct money to the Rotary Flames House, a place of solace and comfort for families of children with progressive, life-threatening illness where they can find the care they need during their child’s end-of-life journey.
And so we need you. We need you to help us keep his memory alive and let the light of that little boy's love shine.
We appreciate your kind generosity to this cause.
Kent and Carla Shafer – Founders of the Matteo Shafer Legacy Fund
