Once Upon a Wish

by Rachelle Sparks

  The peace that surrounded them that day—their family and friends, the bridge and the trickle of the fountain, the place that had provided hours of respite for Dakota and his mom—would soon become a memory for them to hang on to. A memory of the place they left, the door they stepped through, to re-enter life.

  When the party was over, that’s where Dakota went, to the outside world, the real world—the world he had wanted to rejoin for the past five months. He had the entire summer before his seventh-grade year to let his body heal from the damages of chemotherapy. After a few weeks, Sharon, who hadn’t left Dakota’s side since December, knew she needed to let go.

  She, Henry, and Riley drove Dakota to church camp at Camp Wyldewood, about thirty miles away, where she and her siblings had spent their summers growing up. Dakota walked beside them, bald head held high, a proud cancer survivor. The camp nurse was aware of his condition and would administer his doctor-prescribed medicine, as well as Sharon’s natural remedies, during the week he was gone. She felt confident that he would be in good hands but said a little prayer anyway that God would take good care of Dakota while he was out of her care.

  Giddy with excitement and anticipation of long-awaited freedom, Dakota eagerly followed his parents to the cabin where he would be staying and listened as they shared Dakota’s story with his bunkmates. Certain that church camp was the safest place for their son to enjoy himself without getting teased for having a bald head, Henry and Sharon wanted to make sure that the other kids understood and treated him kindly—treated him the way they would treat any of the other children at camp.

  Sharon set up Dakota’s bed with his pillows and blankets from home. After he placed his favorite stuffed animal, a black Labrador named Trouble, on top, Sharon smiled and hugged her son, embracing him with all the love inside of her. She saved her tears for the car ride home, focusing, in that moment, only on Dakota’s happiness and his freedom, the greatest gifts she could ever receive.

  When they returned a week later to pick up Dakota, he ran from his cabin, tearing down the dirt trail, a big smile leading the way, and skidded to a dusty halt in front of his parents.

  “I have hair!” he yelled before wrapping his arms around them. The fuzz tickled Sharon’s chin as she embraced him with all her might.

  He has his life back, she thought, tears dripping into her smile.

  When they returned home, Dakota spent every day that summer playing football and basketball in their front yard with Riley and the other neighborhood kids. He dribbled and passed as though he had never been sick and chased runaway balls down the street and into the woods. He returned to school that August and tried out for basketball, making the seventh-grade team.

  Dakota played with all his might, with every ounce of vigor as any other player on the court. The first point he made that season was a free throw. Standing at the foul line, looking down at the ball intently, he dribbled in place, looked up at the hoop with determined eyes, and …

  Swoosh.

  The crowd erupted, Dakota shot a smile at his parents, and Sharon dropped her head into her hands, sobbing right there in the stands, right there in the middle of the wild crowd.

  She didn’t care. Her son was back.

  Dakota was excelling in all of his pre-advanced placement classes, learning as much as he could to pursue his dream of becoming an engineer, a missionary, or the President of the United States. He thrived in math and had a passion for history, which started as a child when he spent hours creating homemade Civil War and John Wayne movies with neighborhood kids. Dressed in boots, holsters, and bandanas, Dakota would use his parents’ camcorder to film scenes with his friends, rolling handwritten credits at the end on rolls of paper towels. Dakota was the star of every film—always the toughest soldier, always John Wayne, always the last one standing.

  Two weeks after the seventh-grade basketball game, Dakota relapsed.

  Sharon could feel it in her bones on the way to his routine checkup. The anticipation of every appointment sat heavy in her chest, nestled deep into her heart, but this appointment was different. Dakota’s color wasn’t quite right. It hadn’t been for two weeks, and his energy had dipped with his spirit.

  “I’m afraid to tell you this,” said Dr. Becton after returning to the tiny room where Sharon and Dakota waited, hours after he drew Dakota’s blood. Every tick of the clock, every minute it had taken to comprise those hours had settled miserably into Sharon’s gut, second by second, and she knew what was coming. She knew that any sign of cancer, any glimpse of its existence, required multiple tests, trips to pathology, second and third opinions—required time.

  After those long, torturous, unsettling hours, Dr. Becton’s eyes, usually radiating strength and confidence, looked down, troubled, before looking up at her, this time strikingly sad. “The leukemia has returned.”

  Sharon’s heart folded over itself, fell into the abyss of the pit in her stomach. The pain of it pounded into her chest so violently that everything else went numb—her arms, her legs, her mind. Dakota dropped his head to look at the floor, and Sharon wrapped him in her arms.

  “We’re going to get through this again, son,” she reassured him. “We’ll do whatever it takes. We’re going to get through this as a family.”

  You’re the mother, she thought to herself. Keep it together, stay strong. Save your tears for later.

  When Dakota called to tell his father the news, Henry closed his eyes. He pictured the bruises on Dakota’s knees—bruises he had convinced himself were from kneeling on the basketball court during season pictures, bruises that could indicate the return of cancer, bruises he wished he could pray away.

  “I hate this, Dad,” Dakota said. “But Dr. Becton said we can beat it again.”

  “You bet, son,” Henry said, his voice unwavering. “We will beat it again.”

  And he already knew how.

  Nine months earlier, when Dakota was in remission from cancer but still undergoing chemo, Henry, Sharon, and Riley had all been tested as potential bone marrow donors—for the possibility that cancer would return, for this very moment.

  It was Valentine’s Day 2003 when Dr. Becton skipped into the room where Sharon sat, waiting for results. He was barely through the door before nearly shouting, “Riley is a perfect match! If we ever need him, if it ever comes to that, he may be Dakota’s lifesaver.”

  Lifesaver.

  Sharon let that word, with all its hope, all its promise, rise up and float there. She closed her eyes, breathed out, silently thanking God. It was no coincidence to her that on this day of love she found out her son, Riley, could possibly give the gift of life to his brother.

  She couldn’t get to Riley’s school fast enough, where she knew he was celebrating this very special day in his fourth-grade class, opening tiny, stuffed envelopes with messages from Scooby Doo and Elmo, eating heart-shaped candies etched with “I love you” and “Hug me.”

  She led him by the hand and into the hall, then hollered, “Riley, we’ve been given the greatest gift of all today! You’re a perfect match for Dakota!”

  Riley’s face beamed, radiating happiness, but he remained silent in shock as his mom squeezed him tight, grabbing and kissing his face all over.

  Finally he spoke.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted, leading Sharon back into his classroom, where he told his teacher and made an announcement to the class. The words cancer and transplant probably meant nothing to that room full of fourth graders, but Riley’s excitement, the smile that stretched across his entire face, sent his classmates out of their seats, their hands pounding together, their cheers filling the halls.

  7

  Cancer had made its return, but before Riley could save Dakota’s life, Dr. Becton had to get him back into remission, at least partially.

  As before, Dakota had good days and bad. And while his body was tired, weakened by such an intense first round of chemo, he resisted the treatment’s misery and remained hopeful and spirited. His h
ospital stays were longer, darker than before, but he still made rounds to eagerly awaiting children, still tricked his nurses with apple juice-filled syringes.

  After just a few days, two Child Life volunteers made a visit to Dakota’s room and told him about the Make-A-Wish Foundation—told him that he could ask for anything in the world, seek anything in his heart’s desire, and his wish would be granted.

  Anything—that word would stretch any twelve-year-old’s imagination to its limit.

  A trip to Australia, Dakota thought. Meeting Brett Favre from the Green Bay Packers … No, the memories will fade.

  Sharon and Henry leaned forward, wanting desperately to read his mind, to hear his wish.

  “I want something that will last,” he finally said.

  Dakota closed his eyes, remembering a moment just a few weeks before, when he was living a cancer survivor’s dream—remission—still living his answered prayer.

  It had been a brisk, October morning when he, Riley, Henry, and Henry’s father, Papaw, rode their ATVs through the silence of the woods, the sun still resting peacefully beneath the horizon, the freedom of the wilderness stretching endlessly ahead, dark and adventurous.

  It was the first day of deer hunting season, and at the ages of ten and twelve, Henry decided it was time for Riley and Dakota each to have his own deer stand. Hunting from the time they were toddlers and shooting with their own guns starting at six and eight, their senses were trained, their instincts polished.

  They were ready.

  Riley’s eyes looked up the length of an oak tree at his deer stand—one of the tallest he had ever seen—placed, from his point of view, sloppily up top. A steep, skinny, worn ladder led toward the sky and into the stand, which offered no place to sit.

  “I don’t want to go up there,” Riley said, keeping his wide eyes on the stand.

  They had just come from looking at Dakota’s stand—300 yards away—a shorter, more solid-looking tree house–type structure with a chair.

  Dakota looked at his younger brother.

  “Papaw, Riley can have my stand.”

  They got settled into their own stands, sat, and waited in the silence, the serenity, of the forest. Endless stars dotted the black sky while a light breeze danced peacefully through the trees, the only sound for miles. After fifteen minutes, a sudden bang cracked that silence, its echo a warning to all wildlife.

  “He got a deer,” said Henry, who was about 300 yards away.

  Riley also heard the shot.

  “It’s a seven-point buck!” Dakota yelled, hovering over his fallen prey.

  He smiled in his hospital bed at the memory and decided in that moment what his wish would be.

  “I wish to have an ATV,” he said proudly.

  Not only was he choosing something he knew his parents could not afford to buy for him, he was choosing a wish of freedom, of independence, of adventure. He would use it to maneuver the thick woods, haul animals, explore.

  He brainstormed aloud all of the desired features for his ATV—its speed, capability.

  “We’ve never met anyone who knew what he wanted quite the way you do!” said one of the volunteers, laughing, charmed.

  In between IV drips, blood draws, chemo, trips home, and back to the hospital, Dakota was attached to his laptop, researching every detail, every function, of his new, personalized ATV. Nurses continued to poke and prod, change medicines, switch arms for IVs, but he would work with them, using his good arm to run the mouse, peek around them politely to see the computer screen. He never stopped researching—color, speed, engine size, brand, model, accessories.

  His thoughts went from leukemia—from chemotherapy and test results and transplant—to riding the ATV through the forest, hunting, life after cancer.

  Dakota settled on a John Deere Gator HPX 4 × 4—it went one mile an hour faster than the rest.

  8

  When he went into partial remission—enough for a transplant—it was time to get Dakota and Riley to Houston, Texas, where the bone marrow transplant would take place. Obtaining doctor’s approval of Dakota’s wish, getting every detail of his special order just right, took a significant amount of time, which volunteers with the Arkansas Make-A-Wish chapter suddenly ran out of when they learned that Dakota was in partial remission and leaving town very soon.

  Knowing the family was heading to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston on Saturday morning, it was a small miracle that the chapter received the Gator in time. They quickly made sure it had the correct hood, windshield wipers, doors—every detail—before covering it with bows and balloons and taking it to Dakota’s home Friday night.

  Sharon and Henry, who knew it was coming that night, hosted dinner for a house full of loved ones, their closest family and friends, telling Dakota they were there to see him off before their eight-hour drive to Houston the next morning.

  The smell of wholesome Southern cooking lingered in the kitchen after dinner and followed the group into the game room, where they laughed, chatted, and played pool until a big, dark, quiet figure snuck up to the glass patio doors that lead from the game room to the pitch blackness of the night.

  “No way!” Dakota yelled when the porch light illuminated two Make-A-Wish volunteers pushing his Gator, his wish, his freedom, toward the closed door. His beaming smile pierced Sharon’s heart as he ran past her, opened the door quickly, and crawled inside the Gator.

  “Who wants to go for a ride?” he asked excitedly.

  Everyone gathered around as Dakota checked the wipers and the hood, opened and closed the doors, and gave the Gator a full inspection. The volunteers handed him a pile of John Deere clothing, which he layered with his own before heading out into the cold, January night. The summer sounds of crickets and bullfrogs had been hushed for months, the absence of lightning bugs leaving the moon and stars to light the way.

  Dakota took one load after another of friends and family for a ride, and as Sharon and Henry watched, the Gator disappeared time after time into nothing but the sound of its own hum, taking the silence of the night with it. They had never seen him happier, or, after everything he had been through, more free.

  As excitement and adrenaline sizzled inside of Dakota later that night, thoughts of all the places he would ride on his Gator dizzying his mind, he forced himself to fall asleep so he was ready for the big day ahead of him.

  When he, Henry, Sharon, and Riley arrived at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston the next day, Dakota was immediately started on chemo, hoping to wipe away any remaining leukemia cells and demolishing his old immune system to replace it with Riley’s.

  A month later, with Dakota’s numbers moving in the right direction, his condition improving just enough, it was time to harvest Riley’s cells, time to start the process of saving Dakota’s life.

  Sitting at the foot of Riley’s bed, Dakota watched as hospital staff placed a mask over his younger brother’s face—something he had been through a hundred times—and he instigated a competition that he knew would take Riley’s mind off of being put under.

  “Let’s see who can count longer,” Dakota said right before the machine was turned on.

  When Riley got to twelve, Dakota pushed even further.

  “Thirteen … fourteen …”

  Riley’s eyes closed against his will, and Dakota closed his, too, saying a silent prayer that the cells they were taking would save his life. On transplant day, when doctors hung a bag of cells, Riley’s lifesaving cells, above Dakota on his IV tree, Sharon prayed over them—prayed that those cells would work as God’s army, march into Dakota’s veins, swim through his blood, give him back his life. Each drip crawled through the clear tube, forcing its way into Dakota’s body, demanding acceptance, creating life.

  Dakota’s eyes moved up and down with every drop, watching intently as Riley’s cells fell into his body. His parents watched, too, and Sharon took her eyes away only to look at the sun as it crawled in through the shaded window, war
ming the room and her spirits. It was the first time in a long time she had actually noticed the sun, cared about its existence.

  Things of beauty had been hiding for months beneath the selfish darkness, bleeding agony, which had consumed them. Sharon paid close attention to the movement of the sun, its morning dance, as though it were the first time she had ever seen it. This was a good day, a day of renewal, of new life. She felt it in every ounce of her being.

  They all did.

  When the last drops seeped in, the bag above hanging clear, it was time to wait. At 4:30 every morning, nurses came in to draw Dakota’s blood, and again, Sharon prayed. She prayed for signs of Riley’s cells in Dakota’s blood, and after twenty-one days, that prayer was answered—his red blood cell count was going up.

  After a month and a half, with counts continuing to increase, Dakota could leave the hospital with daily visits. It was his first step toward getting back to the Gator. Thinking about the friends he would take and the places he would go, kept his mind clear, free, during those long days and nights at the hospital, just waiting.

  “I can’t wait to take Zach and Brandon and Riley and Justin on long rides,” Dakota said of his brother and best friends. He talked every day about riding into the woods, hunting with his Gator, and visiting Moccasin Gap in the Ozark Mountains.

  When Dakota was released from the hospital, he, Riley, and their parents stayed in what they called The Treehouse, a small, above-garage apartment at Sharon’s brother’s Houston home. Its soft white walls were somehow different from the bright, sterile shade in the hospital. This white was inviting, as was the old-fashioned, claw-foot tub in place of a cold, tile shower; books that had nothing to do with cancer; contemporary art hanging on the walls rather than posters of the body’s systems; and meals served on plates rather than trays. The Treehouse was just minutes away from MD Anderson, making daily visits easy and convenient.