Community Spirit

Remember Evie? 

 A little girl who began to show signs of illness earlier this year, a substantial weight loss, severe anaemia, and then the lumps started to appear.  Her mother told me that she knew then that something was majorly wrong.  She was right, within two weeks, a diagnosis of Hodgkins Lymphoma was made, and Evie went straight into chemotherapy.

She is eight years old.

One of the reasons why I wrote the A Story for Evie was because of a natural human urge to want to help those friends who are suffering.  Evie was in unfamiliar surroundings, but her family were in unfamiliar territory and in total shock.  At first they didn’t even understand the vast amounts of information that was flung at them, and from that faltering position they had to make decisions about treatments and locations and all the while coping with the hidden terror that comes with cancer.

One of the things that they were told was to be totally honest up front with Evie and her siblings.  Her older sister at 12, was savvy enough to realise how serious it was, and her younger brother at 4 was too little to understand the implications of the disease, but was devastated that she would lose her hair like all the other children on the ward where he visited her.  As outsiders, one can only imagine how the parents coped.  As outsiders, we all felt helpless, wanting to do something, wanting to say ‘It will be all right’ and smoothing away all the fear, the pain and the sleepless nights.

In my last post Memory Lane I wrote about how valuable old friendships are, and how we should treasure them.  But I also acknowledged that new and recent acquaintances can be just as immeasurable in the love and friendship that they offer.  Hence when I wrote the Story for Evie, which urged people to give to the Little Princess Trust, a charity who made wigs out of real hair for sick children, and Evie’s mother shaved her hair off in support, there was an outpouring of donations.  People, new friends, old friends and family just wanted to help.

And there were a number of other things that people did for charity in the name of Evie.  This little 8 year old inspired people to run, to shave their heads, to hold bake sales.  She came runner up in the Pride of Bracknell Awards, and the mummies at school decided to organise a fundraiser fun day in order to raise money for Evie herself.  This was billed as Evie’s Wardrobe of Multicoloured Wigs – and as friends we were all invited to donate any toys, unwanted gifts, our time, or just to come along and show our support.

Held at the Pines School Professional Centre in Bracknell on Saturday, I took Little Man along.  We didn’t really know what to expect.  The first thing we saw when we walked in was Minnie and Mickey Mouse walking around and greeting everyone.  And then I was enveloped in a massive bear hug.  It was Evie’s dad with a big beam on his face.  Evie’s Aunties greeted me from the stalls that they were manning – chocolate drop, bits and bobs stall, and treasure hunt.  There was a stunning cake stand that seemed to stretch for miles, and face painting, nail painting, biscuit decorating, crafting, name a bear, several sweetie stands, clothes stands and the ever popular tombola.

Picture courtesy of  Jasmine El- Mekki

And above all there was the aromatic scent of curry simmering in the kitchen cooked by Evie’s grandfather.  You could have lamb, chicken, and chickpea curry, with 2 rices, a naan, an onion bhaji and a tomato and onion salad for £3.00.  Little Man perked up.  He loves curry.  He also loved a big cuddly bear (that I was sure that we had donated in the first place), his two tombola prizes and the two cakes that he bought.  He bought raffle tickets, won some chocolate on the chocolate game and tried to guess the correct square on the find the treasure game.

I spotted Evie and her mum, both of whom gave me a hug.  Evie was serene, seemingly unfazed by being the centre of attention and being smothered in the outpouring of love that came her way whenever someone new walked in.  She asked me if I liked the bracelets that she had made, and were up for sale.  Little Man and I watched as she showed us how to weave the little elastic bands into these colourful rubber bracelets.  She had made them all whilst undergoing her treatment in hospital.  I asked her to choose me two, and I put the money in an already over flowing pot.

 

I will treasure those bracelets.

We left as Evie and her family posed for the local newspaper.  All around them was the protective sea of pink T shirts of all of the volunteers.  The love and support emanating from them was palpable.

 

And as we got into the car, Little Man turned to me and said

 ‘That Evie, she must be really famous, to have all of those people raising money for her.’

  ‘No darling’, I said, ‘She’s just a normal little girl, but she and her family are very, very loved’.

Evie's fundraising day raised a large amount of money for her and her family, and so they have asked that any readers who are touched by her story and wish to donate, please give to The Little Princess Trust, a charity who provides wigs free of charge to sick children undergoing treatment.

A Story for Evie

This is Evie.  About a month ago she didn’t feel very well and so Mummy took her to the doctors and he looked at her and made her stick her tongue out and say Aaaah which was funny, and then he showed her how red her blood was as he sucked it up in little injections, and then he gave her some tablets.  And the best thing was that afterwards Mummy took her to the café and she had a massive piece of cake and an even bigger hot chocolate with cream and sprinkles.  But the thing was, Evie still wasn’t a hundred per cent, and so she went to a great big hospital in London which was stuffed to the rafters with children and toys and lots of happy smiling doctors who said that they would make her feel better. She had a go at some painting, and learned to play the harp, and all her friends sent her cards and presents and she was very happy even though she still hurt a little bit from all the medicine that she had been given. One day, a nurse sat down with her and her mummy and said that they needed to give her some really strong medicine that might make her hair fall out.  Evie was very upset, but the nurse said that she could choose a wig, made from real hair, all for her very own, until hers grew back.  And her Mummy, who has the longest hair of all the mummies she knew, said that she would cut her hair off to give for a wig for the next child. This is a story for Evie…

The Hairy Fairy

Now we’ve all heard of the Tooth Fairy, and if truth be known, she is one of the bossiest fairies.  She is pretty and blonde and very, very, clean with sparkly wings and a shimmery dress.  She doesn’t carry a wand, because most fairies don’t – they only get in the way of Good Deeds. She carries a little clipboard around with her, and has a big blackboard with signs saying Wobbly with a date underneath for when the tooth is due to come out, and Teething with a date in which a tooth is due to go in.  You see, it’s a little known fact that when you lose your baby teeth, the Tooth Fairy collects the tooth from wherever you have left it – in a pot, under your pillow, on a windowsill – she will find it, because it is all on her clipboard.  And at the end of a teeth collecting night, she goes to her little house in the woods (shelives  by the canal, because she likes to hear the sound of the ducks quacking) and she has forty winks (because even fairies have to sleep) and then she gets up and scrubs and scrubs at the little milk teeth that she has collected. In the afternoons she goes into the houses where all the teething babies are asleep (because they never sleep at night) and she pops a shiny bright tooth into their gums, so that it can be used again.  And then she ticks it off on her blackboard when she gets home.

The Tooth Fairy has a sister called The Hairy Fairy who is a little bit quieter, and a bit dreamy, and not very pretty.  In fact, she doesn’t really look like a girl, even though she is, because she has a beard.  And she doesn’t wear a dress, but likes big baggy shorts, a white linen shirt, and some teeny tiny fairy Timberland boots.  In fact, she looks a bit like Evie’s Uncle Bill (but we won’t tell him that).  Anyway, the Hairy Fairy is very kind hearted, and she is also a bit of a collector.  But she is also a bit disorganized.  Where her sister has pots of gleaming teeth all in different sizes and orders, the Hairy Fairy has bags of hair, all in different colours and lengths, and all jumbled up.  She doesn’t have a blackboard with dates on, and is very haphazard  -that is why, when Evie’s daddy started to go a little bit bald, he didn’t get any replacement hair, because all she could find was orange curly hair, and that would look a bit odd. 

‘What I need,’ thought the Hairy Fairy, ‘Is some help in sorting out my hair bags, and then I will try and be bit more organized.’   All that thinking made her tired, and so she went off to have a cup of dew and a nice sugar crystal (which her sister had banned, because it was bad for teeth).  And I’m afraid to say that she fell asleep in the sunshine.

There were five little elves who had nowhere to live, because a Scout Camp had pitched their tent right on the toadstools which they called home.  So they wandered around, looking for a safe place to start building again.  They came upon the Hairy Fairy, who was asleep outside her house in the sunshine, and they peeked inside her big comfortable home.  The eldest elf, Leo – said ‘What a mess! And Ru, the next eldest looked in and went ‘Urgh!’, but the three little ones, Isa, Cob and Oll clapped their little hands in glee.  Because you see, there is nothing an elf likes more than tidying up, and let’s face it, poor old Hairy Fairy’s house was an absolute disgrace…

Hairy Fairy woke up with a start.  She was late again, and had to do some hair collecting from a hospital from some children.  She scuttled into the house and gave a big scream that woke her pet frog, who started to croak loudly and jump all around the place.  All of the hair bags had been sorted, the house was clean and tidy, and the kettle was boiling noisily on the stove.  Hairy Fairy rubbed her eyes, and looked again.  There were five little elves, heads cocked to one side, looking back.  And Hairy Fairy whirled round and round in the room for joy and hugged them.

‘Thank you so much!’ she cried, and tears ran into her beard.  And the little elves (who had been a bit scared of the big bearded fairy) jumped up and down and laughed and laughed in their shrill voices.

And so you know what they did? They stayed with the Hairy Fairy and they helped her from then on.  Leo was in charge of the new blackboard, and Ru was in charge of the sorting whenever Hairy Fairy came in from carefully collecting all fallen hairs off pillows and sheets, in the corner of floors and from sink holes (she needed gloves for that job).  And the three little elves Isa, Cob and Oll would jump into the piles of hair and roll around in them and have hair fights before Ru got them all under control again.  And they wove themselves each a blanket out of the odds and sods, so that they were warm at night.  And they made a special blanket for Hairy Fairy out of Evie’s hair.  

But Hairy Fairy hasn’t changed too much – and she is still a bit disorganized, and gets a bit distracted.  And that is why, when babies are born, some have lots of hair, some have patches of hair, and some have no hair at all. 

And that is why Evie’s dad never did get his hair back.

If you have enjoyed this story, please use the link below to donate to the Little Princess Trust, who provide real hair wigs, free of charge, for sick children who have lost theirs.  Many thanks.

Little Princess Trust

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