‘Don’t give up’: How a woman’s diagnosis pushed her to help children through hardship
MADISON, Ala. (WHNT) — Everyone deals with fear, loss, and hardship. For Patricia Brooks or ‘Pat’ as her friends call her, the time came with an unexpected diagnosis.
“My doctor was a great doctor and I absolutely loved him. But he called me on the phone, and he said, it’s cancer. I said, are you kidding me? I was totally shocked,” Pat said.
When she needed to find her courage, she created fearless. After she woke up from anesthesia, she introduced the world to ‘Fearless the Lion.’
“I lifted my head up off the pillow and in my best Southern drawl, I said, ‘Hi, y’all. My name’s Fearless. My mom named me that,'” Pat explained.
And that was how the Fearless project was born. Pat says she decided children were the avenue for these projects because they have great needs.
So she started with the Fearless the Lion books that eventually turned into a series. Now, the books even come in Spanish.
As time went on, it turned out Fearless the Lion had friends everywhere and Pat found Fearless was especially needed when there was a disaster.
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“I got a call from Cordova, Alabama, from the school counselor. She said, ‘Our whole town was just demolished. The only thing standing is a school up on the hill….Can you come down here and speak to my kindergarten and my first grade?’ We talked to those kids about having courage. And that fear was contagious, but courage was also contagious. And then a little girl came up to me and she said, ‘My name is Jasmine without an E….Remember my name.’ And she skipped off a little blonde. The teacher came over and said her brothers were killed in the tornado…we were in tears,” Pat said.
Meeting Jasmin had a major impact on Pat. She’d just finished a new Fearless story featuring a beautiful princess that she named after Jasmin, and later, she returned to Cordova to tell Jasmin.
Pat told her, “You don’t have to be afraid of storms anymore because you’re now a princess. You’re a friend of Fearless.”
The Fearless project didn’t stop with the books, as Pat wanted to do more for children.
Her vision – a fearless bag. And she found a champion for the bags in Sheriff Kevin Turner.
“The door just flung open. And so, we came back and the community we started talking about it. In my Fearless bag, I wanted the Fearless coloring book. But the thing that I wanted most was the softest, most comforting, soothing little blanket,” Pat said.
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Pat said if she could tell one thing to children that have gone through a traumatic experience, it would be “Don’t give up. There’s always hope. You don’t have to live in fear. There’s someone out there that cares for you. You have a future. God will help you find the place that you need to be.”
She looks forward to the day when Fearless bags are in every Alabama police cruiser ready for children who need them. That dream is on the way to becoming a reality. Right now, fearless bags can be found in Madison, Limestone, and Marshall County Sheriff’s Departments and Athens, Gurley, Owens Crossroads, New Hope, Elkmont, Ardmore and Grant police departments.
Pat recently met with a publisher about a new book. The aid organization, World Vision, plans to share Fearless books with children after a disaster.
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