By Cristy Ecton, Outreach Manager, Pauline Allen Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s Health
“It is so sad to think of children with cancer. How can you work there?” has been the typical response for the past 20 years when I tell people about my job at Children’s Health.
I respond by gushing about the resiliency I see, like when kids with no hair skip down the clinic hallway while their parents keep up to push the IV pole behind them. Or, the joy I see as a backstage coordinator at the annual Children’s Cancer Fund gala as I prepare our patients to walk down the runway holding hands with a celebrity as hundreds of people applaud.
When the next question is, “What if they don’t survive?” I pause and think of the patients’ families. Families who took the most devastating experience in their lives to create the most beautiful legacies. Families like the Malones.
Michael Malone was diagnosed with cancer at 4 years old during the 2009 holiday season. Alison, his mom, remembers so many lengthy hospitalizations. Alison says Children’s Health is where Michael spent much of his school years. Where he lost baby teeth, he also learned to say neuroblastoma.
In April 2012 Michael’s condition was deemed terminal. His family vowed every Friday thereafter to host a block party. Throughout those weeks, Michael slept a lot or was too weak to do much. However, he looked forward to Fridays. He mustered the energy to see everyone and enjoy their visits. The Friday parties carried into June when Michael died a couple of weeks after his 7th birthday.
Now Michael’s life is celebrated by his family as they host a block party every June in memory of his birthday. Initially, toys were donated at the block party. Friends, classmates, and neighbors crowded the street as his family hosted food trucks, a bounce house, water slides, and more. The hours of sharing fun and memories ended each of the seven events with a balloon release and singing “Happy Birthday” in Michael’s memory.
The pandemic has cancelled the block party the last two years, but not the toy donations. Alison and Michael’s sister Emory have brought hundreds of toys and gift cards to Children’s Health that were delivered to their home in lieu of the party, but more importantly, to remember Michael. For nine years, Alison has brought a ‘Team Michael Toy Drive’ banner with the toy donation for a picture in front of the hospital to bookmark the occasion.
Michael’s legacy spreads far and deep because of his family. In the nine years since he died, nearly $100,000 in toys and gift cards have been donated to Children’s Health to make hospitalizations a little bit brighter for other children.
Michael’s classmate and friend Ben, who turned 16 this year, has also begun to host school toy drives as part of Team Michael.
Alison has brought Team Michael efforts to CCF as she serves on the advisory board, and Emory and Ben are creating a CCF teen board this year. Alison said it is fitting to join efforts with CCF as she remembers how much fun Michael had participating in the annual gala – walking the runway with Chuck E. Cheese, and taking pictures with honorary co-chairs and Dallas Cowboys legendary quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach.
So many people continue to remember Michael, whose life was cut too short, while the acts in his memory prove to carry joy to others in limitless ways.
