‘Community of care’: Loss of teenager inspired mom to help other grieving parents

On March 31, 2010, Amy and Ed McNicholas’ 14-year-old, music-loving son John — an “old soul” who played baseball and football — was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

When John McNicholas died less than 10 months later, Amy McNicholas felt like she would die too. Fortunately, friends, faith leaders and her neighbors rallied around her and her family.

“I had a wonderful community of care that held space for me to mourn what I lost,” she said.

McNicholas now helps provide similar support for grieving parents and families as director of Missing Pieces, a program of the Oakbrook Terrace-based Hospice and Palliative Care Research & Education Foundation, or HAP Foundation.

Established in 2022 by Kristin James and Dr. Kelly Michelson, Missing Pieces partners with counselors, health care professionals, hospice agencies and other community organizations to provide grief support to families who experience the loss of an infant, child or young adult. Last year, the organization served 350 families.

Two years after McNicholas took over as Missing Pieces director, Nexstar Media Group’s WGN-TV named her 2025’s Remarkable Woman of the Year for the Chicago region.

The award came as a beautiful surprise, a bittersweet one at that.

“It is an interesting experience, holding both the beauty of the moment and the sadness of what brought it to me,” said McNicholas, who lives in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood.

Loss inspires action

After John died, McNicholas and her husband established Live Like John, the John McNicholas Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation to fund research and treatment.

But Amy McNicholas, who has a public health background, wanted to do more. To that end, she earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology and became a licensed clinical professional counselor to assist other grieving parents.

“I wanted to be that therapist I wish was available to me,” said McNicholas, who worked for a time with LOSS, Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide, and Advocate Health prior to joining Missing Pieces.

“The grief around the loss of a child is unimaginable, but for more than 1,200 parents/caregivers/families in Illinois it’s a reality,” McNicholas said, referring to the estimated number of children who die in Illinois annually.

Missing Pieces works to ensure their families have access to support services they need.

“Support looks different for every family,” McNicholas said. “Some don’t have the resources to bury a child, so we support them with burial services. Some want grief support.”

It works like this: parents or guardians fill out a referral form online at missingpiecesgrief.org. Within a day or two, a representative reaches out to the family with information on social workers, therapists and other professionals who can provide the support they need. Missing Pieces stays in contact with the family for at least a year, McNicholas said.

Amari Funderburg, a mom who contacted Missing Pieces after losing her son, wrote that McNicholas “showed me that there was life after losing a child.”

“Amy and Missing Pieces helped me navigate my grief, allowing me to remember my son Kaiden by embracing the ebbs and flows,” she wrote. “They guided me forward, enabling me to laugh again and continue living each day.”

Now Funderburg helps other mothers navigate their grief.

There’s no right way to do it, said McNicholas, but everyone can benefit from the kind of “community of care” that helped her move forward.

“Everybody can benefit from community,” she said. “Everybody can benefit from nurturing relationships.”

For grief support, see missingpiecesgrief.org. To donate, see thehapfoundation.org/donate.