CNN Correspondent Pens Touching Post After Losing Her 2-Year-Old Son To Brain Cancer

CNN correspondent Rene Marsh is mourning the devastating loss of her 2-year-old son. In a touching and heartbreaking Instagram post on Thursday, Marsh announced that Blake, who she affectionally called “Blakey,” had died of brain cancer and opened up about how her son taught her how much strength she really had.

“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. You taught me endurance,” Marsh wrote on Instagram alongside a few sweet pictures of her son. “You taught me a depth of love I have never experienced. You inspired me to keep going when I wanted to give up. You helped me prioritize what is truly important in this life.”

Marsh shared in a February 2020 Instagram post that doctors found a “fast-growing tumor” in Blake’s brain a few months earlier in December 2019. It was the day Marsh said “transformed” her life. Marsh revealed in the post that little Blake underwent brain surgery and chemotherapy before he was 1 year old. Blake was Marsh and her husband Kedric Payne’s only child.

“The child who I dreamed about for years, who I carried for 9 months and smiled every time I felt his kicks inside me has brain cancer,” she wrote on Instagram back in February 2020. “I did everything by the book when I was pregnant. After birth, for 9 months he appeared to be a perfectly normal and happy baby. Literally overnight his life and ours took an unexpected turn.”

Brain tumors affect up to 5,000 children every year and some forms of the cancer are life-threatening,” according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Marsh thanked the doctors at Johns Hopkins who cared for her son on Twitter. “Thank you to all the doctors and nurses at #JohnsHopkins who cared for and loved Blake over the past year and a half,” she tweeted on Thursday.

Blake’s life was short, but images shared on Marsh’s Instagram page show he was full of smiles, joy, laughter, and love. Blake had just celebrated his 2nd birthday last month on March 19 with a messy mouth of vanilla ice cream.

The journalist added that her life has been forever changed by her son and promised to dedicate her life to fighting pediatric cancer. Earlier this year, Marsh wrote an opinion article for CNN about her son and called pediatric cancer a “white-knuckle journey.”

Marsh concluded her Instagram post on Thursday with a promise to her son. “I didn’t just lose you Blakey, I lost all the dreams and hopes that a mom has for a son. I lost my motherhood and I’m mourning it all,” she wrote. “I am dedicated to fighting pediatric cancer for the rest of my life. I will do it not just to spare other parents from this unbearable pain but I will do it to forever honor you, Blake. Your life was not in vain my sweet angel.”