This week's guest blog comes from one of my closest friends from high school. Her name is Tiana and she is an Orlando, Florida native. We met sitting side by side in our ninth grade, all girls choir. The memories I have of this girl are endless and exciting, from hanging out backstage before our Disney Candlelight concerts to giggling over cute upper classmen boys.
This morning as I drove to work my mind raced with all the ways I wanted to start this blog but now that I stare at the empty white pages…my mind has gone blank. I’m not always an eloquent writer, I don’t have a very large vocabulary, and most times my thoughts swirl around my head like the water in a fish bowl. Every once in a while though this crazy thing happens where my thoughts and words flow across the page in a way that surprises even me.
I still remember the night that Christina met Chris. We were both young high school girls with fantasies of finding prince charming, our views of the word untarnished, and dreams of being as famous as Britney Spears. Our weekends were spent at Christina’s house pretending that her hair brushes were microphones and the posters on her wall was our sold out arena. We stayed up late watching movies about love and how perfect life was in those Hollywood stories. It was raining that Friday night, her and I both chilled to the bone as we entered the theater. I can’t remember now what movie we were seeing, she could probably tell you better than I could. I just remember it being dark, and the boy next to Christina, offering up his jacket to keep her warm; I smiled even as I shivered. This boy would later grow into the man that Christina would marry and start her family with.
I’ve always found pride in knowing that I am an honest person, that I have no problem speaking my mind, and I have no problem being blunt. It’s something that I find difficult to deal with; picking my words carefully. I haven’t been there for Christina as much as I should’ve been lately only because I don’t know what words to say. How do I tell one of my dearest friends that there is no hope? How am I supposed to tell her that at some point they will need to just let go? How am I supposed to tell her that everything will be okay, or that I know somewhere there is a cure for him? How am I supposed to give her false hopes and deal with how crushed I will feel when it turns out all I did was lie? Even now, knowing that Christian is reading this causes my heart to shatter into pieces too small to be put back together. How does someone who has always lived by the rules of karma, the idea of being positive, and the idea that everything works out and happens for a reason, deal with the knowledge that your best friend will lose her son and there isn’t anything that you, her or the doctors can do for him? It goes against everything I’ve believed and the way I’ve lived my life. Bad things aren’t supposed to happen to good people, bad things aren’t supposed to happen to innocent children, and we’re supposed to be able to fix this.
When I first saw the announcement on Facebook about Nathan’s illness, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit around and let my thoughts get the best of me; I had to do something productive. I started putting together a small benefit for Nathan, to help raise money for Christina and Chris. It started with a Facebook message to a local DJ and a handful of my drag queen friends in the area. I told them what was going on, explained what I wanted to do; within five minutes I had my first response, “I’m in.” From that moment on the benefit has grown into a full blown event larger than I could’ve hoped for!!
I spoke earlier of being a friend to Christina, not knowing how I stand by her and be her rock, her strength, and her words of hope. Tuesday night I watched as a community came together for people they didn’t know, a child they didn’t know and donated over $600 for the Earle family. I stood by the table full of pictures of Nathan and was brought to tears as people confused him for my son and spoke words of compassion, faith, and hope. It was after two handsome men walked over to the table and asked, “Is the money for him?” pointing to the picture of Nathan. I nodded and they followed with, “Is he sick?” to which I replied, “Very.” He then asked me, “Will he be okay?” and as I shook my head no he reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out five twenty dollar bills and placed them in the donation vase. He refused to take any tickets but instead told me that he didn’t need to be rewarded for donating money but that he wanted me to keep hope and to pray because God works in mysterious ways. I hugged him and whispered, “Thank you.” That’s when I knew, it’s not about the words that I do or don’t say to Christina, it’s about simply being there. It’s about loving this little boy that I have never been able to meet or cradle in my arms. It’s about letting his story touch my heart, and spreading it to the world. What story is that? Certainly not that of a sick boy but rather a little boy who refuses to give up, a little boy who just when we think he’s at his worst will smile at Christina, and a little boy who will have forever changed my heart.
There are 706 miles between us, 11 hours and 45 minutes worth of drive time between myself and the Earle family at The Children's Hospital and while I can’t afford to make this drive, though I’ve never been able to meet or hold Nathan, I’ve never been able to sing to him or tell him how proud I am of him…my heart, my prayers and my thoughts are with him.
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