Founder's Vision

Tábitha House … so there is always help …

The mission and purpose of Tábitha House is unique in Hungary. It offers support in an area most of us — myself included — want to keep far away from, even avoid thinking about: the incomprehensible tragedy of a child’s suffering and early death.

The mission of Tábitha House is to ensure that the limited remaining time of children suffering from incurable illnesses and their dying process take place in a dignified and loving environment. At Tábitha House, children receive professional medical care while parents and relatives can stay continuously by their side, supporting them in the difficult battle against illness. The House provides undisturbed conditions for parents so they can give their beloved children everything to ease the suffering, farewell, and process of tragedy during the time they have left together.

Grief often places an unbearable burden on parents, so Tábitha House also offers help in coping with loss. It creates an opportunity for a dignified and respectful farewell to “incurable” children, for experiencing grief, and for honoring the memory of the child.

Writing the founding words of a children’s hospice house is a painful task, because as a father of two healthy children, I cannot avoid confronting the incomprehensible tragedy of child death while preparing and putting these thoughts on paper. The world around us teaches that the sole meaning of life is career, individual success, money-measured achievement, and pleasures bought with money. We fight and work tirelessly to achieve our goals: we compete with colleagues and rivals, constantly worry about tasks and deadlines. In this struggle, we often lose sight of the values and goals that give true meaning and content to our unique, finite, and unrepeatable lives. The false messages of success, money, and glamour make us forget that we can only live a meaningful and valuable life if we find its purpose and seek answers to life’s important questions.

The loss brought by death suddenly rearranges priorities; one realizes the difference between false and true values and goals. Urgent matters must not crowd out the important. Through the torment of a child’s illness, we understand the value of health and the gift of a peaceful night’s sleep. The death that appears at the end of every story sharply illuminates how precious the irretrievable days, weeks, months, and years are that a family spends together in health — days not meant to be filled with worry and shallow struggles.

Each story I have seen shows a unique worldview and values. Some rely on their own strength in the fight against illness and feel that with the death of their beloved child, everything ends — a piece is torn from their heart, and life becomes meaningless. Others, even as adults, feel they draw strength from their child and learn to fight through their child’s example. Still others do not fight alone but rely on God’s strength, believing that although suffering and death are tragic, comfort comes from knowing life does not end with death. Those who believe in Jesus Christ have eternal life, and families will reunite in God’s kingdom, where there is no more tears or suffering.

Each fate and story comes with its own faith and value choices, but all draw attention to the parents’ task and responsibility: they warn that “the days are evil” and time is limited. We must give love and true value to our children as long as we have time and health. Once illness arrives, there is little we can do, and nothing is worse than realizing too late that we made a big mistake: we did not spend enough time with our children, did not love them enough, and did not give them all the true value we had to offer. But we can only give value and love if we ourselves are in the right place: if we focus on wrong goals in life, if our values are misguided, we can give nothing. We can only give what we ourselves possess.

The service and experience at Tábitha House carry a message for parents: we must decide on life’s important questions. Who are we and what is our task on earth? Does life have meaning and purpose? Is there death and an afterlife? Does God exist, and if so, can we believe in His promises? We cannot live without these answers. The answers to these questions determine what we consider valuable and how we spend our lives. These decisions appear in our goals, how we organize our time, our relationship with our children and family, and they shape how we love.

Each fate and story is a raised, warning finger: we can only give the value we have, and only as long as we have the opportunity! We must decide what we believe and how we live our lives.

László Galambos
Founder of Tábitha House