When Brenda Powell died Tuesday, Akron Children’s Hospital didn’t just lose a child life specialist. For her co-workers and the many patients she worked with, they’re losing family.

“She was like a second mom to me and the mom at the hospital,” said Jackie Custer, one of her former patients at the hospital’s cancer center. “She treated us just like her own children.”

Brenda Powell, 50, of Akron died Tuesday from cuts and stab wounds that police say she sustained from her 19-year-old daughter, Sydney.

Sydney has been charged with murder. Court records show a family member posted her $25,000 bond Friday.

Brenda Powell was a child life specialist at Akron Children’s for 28 years, and worked at the hospital’s Showers Family Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders. She often was by her patients’ side for the hardest parts of their treatments.

“For me and so many others, she helped us patients get through the most difficult times of our lives,” Custer said. “And you know, not just the patients, but their families as well.”

Custer, 22, said she was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 16, and underwent chemotherapy for 2½ years, but now is in remission.

Brenda Powell was with her all that time, even when Custer suffered a stroke and was moved to another part of the hospital. Although she couldn’t always speak with her, Brenda Powell’s presence still made a difference.

“It was always just so uplifting and as soon as she walked in the room her smile would brighten up the whole room,” Custer said.

Many of Brenda Powell’s patients became part of a support group she led for teens with cancer, centered on connecting them with peer support. Many kept coming to the group well after their teens and their cancer treatment, and stayed in contact with the child life specialist.

Julia Tingler, now 26, was diagnosed with cancer at 17. She’s been in remission for almost eight years, but joined the group each month until she was 25.

Tingler said people tended to focus on her cancer when they met her. She said the teen group Brenda Powell organized gave patients a chance to feel normal.

“They just kind of treat us a little differently,” Tingler said. “She would just treat us like we were teenagers, because a lot of us were robbed of our childhood.”

Brenda Powell was known for going the extra mile to organize events for her patients, one being the Prom to Remember.

Tingler said the child life specialist’s office would look like a “whole box of dresses exploded.”

“She just wanted us to forget an IV machine was attached to us for a minute, and try to make us feel beautiful,” Tingler said.

Dr. Jeffrey Hord, director of the Showers Family Center for more than 20 years, said he interacted daily with Brenda Powell, seeing her dedication firsthand.

Sometimes it was sitting with a patient during a procedure. Other times, it was taking patients bowling. Hord said she did everything to support patients and families through their journey of treatment for cancer or blood disorders.

“I feel like she was an angel here on earth to help us through this,” Hord said.

He said she did so much that she’ll leave a hole not only in the hospital, but in everybody’s hearts.

On Thursday, a crisis intervention team was available at the hospital to offer support.

Hord said everyone, in shock, clustered together. So many people were grieving that they needed to move rooms a few times, eventually setting up in the auditorium, the biggest room in the hospital.

The impact Brenda Powell made on “literally thousands” of patients and families over her career just can’t be measured, Hord said

“It takes a very special person to work in our field to begin with,” he said. “But she went so above and beyond on her level of dedication.”

Hord said she was instrumental in many programs newspapers and TV stations reported on, but often hid from attention.

Jimmie Radcliff, 23, was another one of Brenda Powell’s patients. He said they knew she didn’t want attention or praise, but the teens started a special tradition to give her just that.

Each December, the group went out for dinner. Year after year, despite her objections, the group would lie to the waiters.

“Every time we would go out to eat, we would tell them it's her birthday,” Radcliff said.

On cue, the woman who wanted no attention had a free dessert, staff singing to her and an entire restaurant looking.

“She would just glare at us, but laugh at the same time,” Tingler said. “It finally got down to a routine for us that we were going to do it, whether she liked it or not.”

Radcliff, Tingler and Custer all said that because of her, they became more than a teen support group.

They became a family.

“She always told us we were her second group of children, who gave her gray hair,” Tingler said.

Tingler said despite any of the circumstances around Brenda Powell’s death, she wants people to remember and focus on the impact she had over her 28-year career.

“I just want people to remember her as the amazing person we remember her as,” Tingler said. “And we'll love her forever.”

Reach Akron Beacon Journal reporter Sean McDonnell at smcdonnell@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3186.

In a Facebook video posted by Akron Children's Hospital in 2010, Brenda Powell talks about the teen cancer support group.