Once Upon a Wish

by Rachelle Sparks

  “It’s gone?” T’Ann cried. “Gone?” The word had an entirely different meaning than it ever had before.

  She turned to Brittney and screamed, “It’s gone!”

  T’Ann fell to the floor beside her daughter and cried unabashedly. Every fear, every worry, every ounce of desperation inside that had consumed her for the past sixteen months shed through those tears. Her daughter was free. And so was T’Ann. Together, they had won the battle.

  T’Ann grabbed the handles of Brittney’s wheelchair and hurried down the halls of the hospital wing, announcing to everyone that her daughter’s cancer was gone. The sound of rejoice did not often fill those halls, but when it did, it was received with smiles, hugs, and tears of hope. Every victory was a reminder to the rest, to the parents poking their heads from their child’s room to witness the patient’s newfound freedom and happiness, to those whose lives were still fully consumed by cancer, that it could be beat. It made every parent and child in that hospital wing believe that their moment was next. They needed to believe because hope was all they had left, and watching Brittney that day filled them with that hope.

  The greatest fear of someone living in remission is that the cancer will one day make its selfish return, but on this day, this very special day, it was gone.

  The celebration did not end that day. Over the next couple of weeks, as Brittney regained some of her strength, she planned a “Celebrating Life” party to reunite with the friends and family she had stayed away from during her illness. From the beginning, she had found comfort in protecting them from the worst of her cancer. It somehow made her stronger to save them the heartache of seeing her that way.

  Their absence gave her a reason to fight stronger, knowing she would see them when she was better. More than fifty guests—including friends from school, family from far away, and all those who had been by her side through the illness—came to the party to celebrate Brittney’s life. And it was quite a celebration.

  T’Ann’s dad, “Papa Chuck,” hosted the party at his home, which was flooded with flowers, food, streamers, balloons, guests, and gifts as Brittney arrived in a stretch limousine with seven of her closest friends, including Andrea. The nose of the long, white car plunged through a line of streamers T’Ann had hung across the driveway, and standing in the distance was a crowd of people that put an instant smile on Brittney’s face and tears of joy in her eyes. It wasn’t long ago she had questioned whether or not she would see some of these people ever again, and here they all were, waiting for her.

  The girls jumped out of the car as people cheered and took turns hugging Brittney as tightly as they could without harming her. She weighed only seventy-nine pounds, and though fragile and pale, her eyes still twinkled with her unmistakable spirit.

  As things started to settle, T’Ann cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and prayed she could get through the speech she had prepared for that afternoon. She took Brittney’s hand for support, looked down at her bald little head and ear-to-ear smile and lost it before she even started. Through tears and sobs, T’Ann talked about Brittney’s remarkable journey and managed to thank everyone who had helped during her illness—from her brother Troy and his wife, Michelle, for their endless toys and visits, to Patty for delighting Brittney with homemade beef jerky, to her younger brother Todd for bringing in an abundance of food from his restaurant.

  She looked down to let her tears fall and looked up, peered through the crowd, and locked eyes with Andy.

  “You are my knight in shining armor,” she nearly whispered, then gasped for another breath as more tears poured from her eyes.

  Standing before every person she cared about and loved, she closed her eyes and recalled the hundreds of hugs Andy had given, the thousands of tears he had wiped, the endless love he had shown to her and to Brittney, and his unfaltering strength.

  T’Ann opened her eyes, smiled at Andy, and used Brittney’s words to finish her speech. “Thank you for standing behind me and keeping me standing.”

  With that, there was not a dry eye at the party.

  Later that evening, sitting in Brittney’s bedroom, T’Ann held her daughter and pondered a thought that had been lingering in her mind for the past few weeks.

  “You know, you could still have that wish if you wanted it,” she said, sitting up.

  “From the Make-A-Wish Foundation?” Brittney asked, and her mother smiled. “I thought that was just for kids who were dying.”

  “Well, I read the brochure that Dr. Kadota gave me, and it said it’s for children with life-threatening illnesses,” she explained.

  “Let’s do it!” Brittney said with excitement.

  “Start thinking about the wish you’d like, and make sure it’s a wish I wouldn’t be able to give to you,” T’Ann said.

  They waited a few months to let Brittney regain even more strength before contacting the foundation, and during that time, it didn’t take long for her to decide what she wanted. As excited as T’Ann was to hear her daughter’s wish, Brittney made her wait until volunteers from the foundation came to visit.

  “Why can’t you just tell me?” T’Ann asked.

  “I’ll tell you when they get here,” Brittney said, determined to keep her mom in suspense.

  The volunteers came a few days later, and sitting on the couch in their living room, one of the volunteers said, “We’re here to grant you any wish, so what will it be?”

  She didn’t even need to think about her response. Once Brittney had chosen her wish, she had spent hours and days dreaming about what it would be like to go there. In her mind, Tahiti was a place with no surgeries, no chemo, no pills, no doctors. It was a safe place far away from home where she could do anything she wanted without worrying that it might send her to the hospital. To her, it was heaven, and when she told the volunteers her wish, her brown eyes gleamed with anticipation.

  “That sounds like a wonderful wish,” they said happily, and they called a few days later with available dates in December and January.

  Finally, Brittney heard the word yes. After months of pain and uncertainty, sickness and defeat, somebody gave her an answer she wanted and deserved to hear.

  They were going on a ten-day trip to stay in a little bungalow on the beach of Moorea, Tahiti, and it would be just the two of them. T’Ann had her healthy little girl back, and at the end of their dark journey together, Tahiti was their light. And so was the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which was offering much more than just a free trip to a place in paradise. They were giving hope at the end of a young girl’s worst nightmare. It was reassurance that she was indeed strong enough to board that plane and take the flight, and after being in remission for four months, Brittney knew she was ready.

  She packed the perfect outfits to wear—twice as many as she needed, just in case—made sure her camera was ready to go, and literally counted the days until they left. T’Ann took her shopping for new swimsuits and clothes, and Brittney beamed when she popped repeatedly from behind her dressing room door, modeling one swimsuit after another for her mom and a group of excited sales ladies.

  Brittney’s bald head had given away the fact that she was a cancer survivor, but she proudly and excitedly told the women that she was in remission and was shopping for her upcoming Wish trip to Tahiti. They brought handfuls of suits for her to try on, and Brittney left the store with a few more than she needed.

  When they got home, she pranced up and down the hallways wearing her new swimsuits, imagining her toes in the sand, playing in the blue waters of Tahiti.

  Brittney spent all of her spare time at home researching Tahiti, figuring out how to squeeze everything in that she wanted to do while they were there. She daydreamed about swimming in the warm waters, riding horses on the beach, taking jeep tours, swimming with sharks and stingrays, riding in a helicopter, hiking, shopping, and at the top of her list, swimming with the dolphins.

  Even during the sickest moments of Brittney’s illness she would walk around the house
in her swimsuit, just for the sake of wearing it, just to feel somewhat normal. Chemotherapy had forced her to stay out of the sun, but she refused to let it win. A lover of swimming and sunshine, Brittney did not succumb to the sadness she felt when she could no longer do those things. Instead, she remained hopeful that she would be able to frolic in the sun again one day. Wearing her swimsuit in the house had kept that hope alive.

  The time finally arrived when she was well enough to wear it outside in the bright sunshine. Brittney counted down the days until they left for Tahiti, but she had one last thing left to do. Having never left the country, she needed a passport. Knowing the process could take months made her and T’Ann nervous as they headed down to their local city hall, where the paperwork would be sent off.

  “I need to get my passport because I’m going to Tahiti!” she excitedly said to every person they passed in the hall. “It’s my wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation!”

  By the time they found the correct office, there were people lining the room who were all rooting for her. “This girl needs a passport … put a rush order on it!” they heard from strangers standing behind them.

  The woman guiding them through the paperwork smiled and sent them to Kinkos to get a passport photo taken. Brittney stood against a blank wall at Kinkos and smiled radiantly. T’Ann had never seen her so happy. When they handed the photo to Brittney, she held it up like a badge of honor. It was proof she was going to take the trip.

  “You know, that’s the picture you’re stuck with until you’re twenty-one,” T’Ann teased, rubbing Brittney’s bald head as they left the store. “You can’t renew your passport for seven years.”

  “I’m keeping this passport forever,” Brittney said, playfully pushing her mom’s hand from her head before looking down at the picture. “It’ll always remind me that I survived cancer.”

  She was ready to go.

  8

  During the ten days she spent with her mom in Tahiti, Brittney was a little weak but did everything on her list and more.

  Her head was still bald, but she was beautiful and playful, and T’Ann felt so blessed to be there with her, watching her walk and laugh, eat and explore.

  The day after they arrived, Brittney and T’Ann took an all-day Jeep tour that circled the island. Bumpy, dirt trails guided them to lagoons, through endless, plush, green trees, and past the most beautiful waterfalls they had ever seen. Their guide made frequent stops during the tour to share interesting island tidbits and to collect random items that he would later use to create a feast for Brittney, T’Ann, and the four other passengers on the tour.

  “That’s pretty cool,” Brittney said to T’Ann as she watched him tear giant banana leaves from a nearby tree to use as tablecloths.

  After lunch, they continued the tour and made several stops so everyone could absorb the sights and views along the way. When the Jeep stopped at the foot of a steep, rugged trail, the tour guide told the passengers that if they made the short hike to the top, they would experience the most beautiful view they had probably ever seen or would ever see again.

  She can’t make that hike, T’Ann thought, and when she looked over to Brittney to tell her that it was okay for them to just stay behind, Brittney was already halfway out of the Jeep.

  “C’mon, Mom, let’s go!” she said.

  Hiding her doubts, T’Ann smiled and said, “All right, let’s do it.”

  Holding hands, they made their way up the narrow, rocky trail that was bordered by a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other. They climbed slowly, and there was no more doubt in T’Ann’s mind that they would make it. When Brittney set her mind on something, she did it.

  Period.

  No complaining, no doubting, no giving up.

  When they reached the top, the view was indeed breathtaking. Endless bright ocean water with pockets of deeper blue swelled and peaked below. They stared in silence, hand in hand, each reading the other’s thought: We made it.

  T’Ann took a photo of Brittney at the top of the hill holding up a Make-A-Wish Foundation button.

  That trail signified everything to T’Ann—Brittney’s battle, her strong will, and most of all, her survival. It was a turning point in her life and the start of the most special trip they would ever share together.

  A few days later, Brittney continued activities that would allow her to check off more items from her mental to-do list as she plunged from the back of a tour boat, a guide at her side, into water dark with sharks.

  She jumps, I jump, T’Ann thought and sprung with sealed eyes and a scrunched face.

  The tepid water beneath crawled with black, and T’Ann nervously floated while Brittney fearlessly swam around, poking her goggles through the surface to get a closer look at the sharks eating their lunches. Later in the trip, Brittney swam with stingrays twice her size.

  Again, T’Ann bobbed in the water a few feet away while Brittney rode piggyback on the guide as he held handfuls of chum above his head, inviting the slimy rays to swim over the back of Brittney’s shoulders for some nibbles. T’Ann watched in terrified awe, realizing that Brittney’s fearlessness is what helped her beat cancer. T’Ann gave her the freedom she deserved on that trip because that’s what Brittney finally was—free.

  The rest of their trip was spent with morning swims in the pool, luaus on the beach, shopping, eating, and laughing, but the highlight of Brittney’s trip, and probably of her life, was swimming with dolphins.

  In a shallow ocean lagoon, she and T’Ann spent an hour playing with dolphins, kissing their long noses, pulling them backward by their fins, and feeding them treats. Brittney’s smile never left. She laughed so hard that day that all the time she spent lying almost lifeless in hospitals, waiting for MRI results, and surviving treatments and surgeries, seemed forgotten. She pulled through everything, and it was her turn to live, her turn to play.

  Brittney’s Wish trip was finally complete, and when they got home, T’Ann knew their lives would be drastically different. Brittney would go to high school, chase after boys, and eventually head off to Harvard, the university of her dreams.

  She would volunteer at children’s hospitals, completing her goal of helping other kids who were going through what she had survived. To make sure she was still on the right track, Brittney went in for an MRI every other month to check that the tumor was still gone. Each time, the results came back clean, so her checkups changed to once every three months. After seven months, she went in for her routine MRI, crawled into the machine with the ease of an expert, and waited.

  She was tense and her palms were sweaty and still. Deep down, she knew what the MRI would find but prayed she was wrong. She prayed that the strange feelings she had inside of her for the past few weeks were normal. As she lay there, T’Ann could see the doctor through a glass window monitoring the scan.

  She stared as a doctor she didn’t recognize entered the small room, hunched down next to the other doctor, and pointed curiously at the screen. When a third doctor entered, took a step back as he looked at the monitor, and exchanged concerned glances with the other two, T’Ann squeezed Brittney’s hand gently, and she knew the answer.

  The tumor was back. It had to be. Why else would they look so concerned?

  “We’ll have the results in a few days and we’ll call you as soon as they come in,” said one of the doctors to T’Ann. She stared into his eyes with patient fury and said, “C’mon, sweetie, let’s go home.”

  Their walk to the car was silent until T’Ann could no longer hold back her tears. She cried and Brittney calmly took her hand.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” she said, playing the role T’Ann knew she should be playing.

  “I think it’s back, Britt,” she sobbed, and her daughter squeezed her hand.

  “Mom, I’m sure everything will be fine,” Brittney said, the words flowing from her mouth going completely against the grain of her gut.

  9

  Over the next few days, life continued a
s normal except for the thoughts that silently consumed them both.

  Maybe the doctors thought they saw something that wasn’t really there. Maybe it’s because it was a new machine.

  While her mother dwelled over these thoughts, Brittney comforted herself with similar “maybes.”

  Maybe I’m wrong and everything’s fine. Maybe the strange feelings I’ve been having are nothing more than my imagination.

  When T’Ann received a phone call at work a few days later, every maybe was proven wrong. The tumor was back, just as they both knew deep down that it was. T’Ann left immediately and sped home, tears dripping into her lap.

  How am I ever going to tell Brittney? Why her? What did we do to deserve this?

  Her thoughts turned to screams, and her fists pounded furiously into the steering wheel until she plowed into their driveway. She opened the front door of the house, looked at Brittney, and didn’t even need to say a word.

  “It’s back, isn’t it?” Brittney said, before bawling until she had no more tears left to cry.

  “You know, baby, it’s three inches this time, not eleven. We can beat it again,” T’Ann said with her hands on Brittney’s cheeks.

  They were hoping that the doctors would be just as optimistic, and they were.

  “I think I’ll be able to get the rest of the tumor,” Dr. Meltzer said when they met with him after hearing the MRI results from Dr. Kadota. “This surgery will be easier than the last, and I think I can get it all.”

  It may have been easier physically, but for Brittney, news of another surgery was her breaking point. She kept herself together during the days leading up to the surgery, but when the day came, she lost it. As Brittney and T’Ann followed Dr. Meltzer into a cold, bright pre-operating room, she broke down and begged her mom to take her home.

  “Please, Mom, don’t make me do this!” she cried hysterically, breaking her mom’s heart. She grabbed T’Ann’s hands with hers and pulled with all her strength. “I don’t want another surgery! I want to go home!”