Amend the Family Medical Leave Act to include Parental Bereavement

The Sarah Grace Foundation For Children With Cancer honors the memory of our daughter, Sarah Grace, who lost a courageous battle with leukemia when she was 12 years old.  Since 2012 Marissa and I have been working with Congressman Steve Israel to modify the FMLA to allow parents the opportunity to grieve after the loss of a child, knowing their jobs will be secure. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY) have introduced Bill # H.R. 2260 “Parental Bereavement Act” or; Sarah Grace-Farley-Kluger Act and we need your help in support of this historic legislation. H.R. 2260 was introduced to Congress on February 5, 2013 – the 20^th anniversary of the original FMLA legislation and re-introduced on May 12, 2015.

Sarah was buried on a Wednesday and I returned to work the following Monday because with Sarah gone I no longer felt comfortable asking my employer for more time off from work. Returning to a ‘normal’ routine so quickly was devastating physically and emotionally and the scars from this experience linger to this day – ten years later. The death of a child, at any age, for any reason is not a natural occurrence; there is no rule book as to how to process the experience or how to move on with your life, and there shouldn’t be because it isn’t the normal course of events. I believe the death of a child takes years off your life because you can never move on, past the experience; you learn to cope with it and some days that is not even bearable. We applaud Rep. Israel’s effort in support of his constituents that have brought the proposed FMLA legislation to Congress. We respect the efforts of the “Farley-Kluger Initiative to Amend the FMLA” in memory of Erica Kluger and Noah and Katie Farley. Families that lose a child often fall apart; parents divorce and sibling(s), often caught in the middle while trying to deal with the loss of their brother/sister, find themselves with troublesome and questionable futures.

Families losing a child need time to heal, time to rebuild, time to comfort one another and that’s what this legislation is about. We are proud and extremely honored to have Sarah Grace’s name attached to such promising legislation and grateful to Rep. Israel for bringing this to the forefront.

Read Congressman Steve Israel May 2015 Press Release:

https://israel.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-israel-and-gosar-announce-bipartisan-legislation-to-give-parents

Visit our facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/The-Sarah-Grace-Foundation-For-Children-With-Cancer-Inc

https://www.facebook.com/farleykluger/?ref=ts&fref=ts