After losing granddaughter to cancer, Mary Miller raises funds, awareness about childhood cancer

A little more than two years ago, Mary Miller went through a tragedy that no grandmother wants to face. She and her husband, Brian, lost their granddaughter, Abby Jensen, to brain cancer.

But instead of letting their grief consume them, Mary and her family have devoted themselves to raising awareness and doing fundraising for childhood cancer.

When asked to describe Abby, who was 5 years old when she passed away, Miller's first response is "funny!"

"Most people thought of Abby as precious and sweet (like) a little angel, and she was," says Miller. "But, she was also a clown and very funny. She could make anybody laugh, and she was like that all the way through her illness. She even liked to pull practical jokes on her physicians."

Abby battled cancer for 11 months. During that time, the family received tremendous community support.

"My daughter, Maegan, and her husband, John (Abby's parents), have a very strong faith, and they received so much help from the Oak Ridge community," says Miller. "People were so good to them and gave them so much support, [as did their] church, the Jackson ward of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

Other churches, organizations and friends helped the family out as well through Abby's illness. After she passed away, Mary and Maegan wanted to do something to say thank you and to pay back the community that had been so supportive of Abby. They came up with an idea they named Abbypalooza.

"It didn't really start out as a fundraiser," says Miller. "We wanted to have games and entertainment for the kids. [As word got out], more and more people as well as vendors wanted to get involved and we ended up making a good little profit in 2011."

Abby's family donated the profits from the event to the research of Dr. Michelle Monge, a research physician at The Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at the School of Medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Dr. Monge does extensive research on Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), the type of brain cancer that Abby had.

"Dr. Monge is our rock star," says Miller, referring to the time and talent she devotes to finding the cause and cure of this disease.

After hosting another Abbypalooza in 2012, the family is taking a break this year and focusing on other ways to support their cause.

"We just did a big blitz on Facebook [this past month], as September is National Children's Cancer Awareness Month," says Miller. The family also supports the Sahara Aldridge Hoops for Life fundraisers, which also raise money for the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford.