Hello to All,
I hope everyone is well. I usually don’t recap every Mikey’s Way Day, but I thought the events of a recent MWD would be of particular interest to you all. Given that you as a board, are about as nice a group of people as I have ever met.
Rachel, is an 11+ year old girl with relapsed brain tumors. (I don’t get into the diagnoses with the parents, other than what they want to tell me). She has a very sweet and angelic face, and in every sense of the word was your normal 10 year old 15 months ago. Unfortunately, she is paralyzed on her left side and is dying from the tumors in her head. When we approached the mom and dad, we offered Rachel anything on our Mikey’s Way Cart. Through her tears, the mom kindly offered that we give Rachel’s gift to another child “one that would have a longer use of it”. We insisted that there was a gift for EVERY child on the cart. When the nurse told us that Rachel likes music, we gave her mother an I-pod nano with $50 worth of i-tunes cards, so she could download Rachel’s favorite music immediately.
I told the mom, how Mikey listened to his favorite music (Phantom of the Opera) right up to the moment he passed. Of course the mom and dad were overwhelmed and accepted the gift. We implored them to download quickly so that Rachel could begin to enjoy asap
I heard from the child life people from the hospital this morning – Rachel reacted immediately to the music. She has been smiling all morning. Best they have seen her in a very long time. If you ever doubt the impact this organization has – DON’T.
There were several other moving and significant moments, but I thought this was very special, and puts a slightly different view of the connection portion of our mission.
Have a great weekend
