Cindy Lange-Kubick: Toys donated to Children's Hospital
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I went to my nephew Sam’s fourth birthday party Sunday.
Sam got a Curious George book and Spiderman pajamas and a Memory game and a dinosaur costume that growled.
His room was full of toys already, my sister said, so he didn’t need much.
Sam scared everyone with his dinosaur costume until he got sleepy and then I drove across town to another birthday party.
Diane and Steve Brestel called it “The 1st Annual Josh Brestel Birthday Safari and Toy Drive.”
Josh’s parents held the party at their church and, by mid-afternoon, two long tables in the fellowship hall were piled with toys.
When the party was over, friends helped fill 16 black garbage bags with games and stuffed animals and basketballs and dolls.
They ran out of bags before they ran out of toys.
During the party, kids made Christmas ornaments out of pipe cleaners and their parents ate cookies and talked.
In one corner, they gave away white T-shirts with three photos on the front of each shirt. The pictures were of Josh and his friends, Haley and Brooke, three Nebraska kids with Wilms’ tumor, a childhood kidney cancer.
Josh died last Dec. 1. He was 4, nearly 5.
Today is his birthday.
His parents and his big sister, Jess, are driving to Omaha this morning with those bags crammed with toys.
They are giving them to Children’s Hospital, where Josh spent so much time the last 15 months of his life.
They want the sick kids to have something special, not just for Christmas, but anytime they need cheering up.
“Whenever Josh got a toy when he was there, it was amazing what it did for him,” Diane says.
They thought about doing it last year, but Josh died so close to his birthday they didn’t have time to plan, and the pain was so fresh.
Sunday, Diane prepared herself.
“I thought of him the whole time,” she said. “He would have loved that party.”
The hardest part came at the end of the day, when they let balloons sail into the sky and sang Happy Birthday to the boy who isn’t here on earth anymore.
Josh loved birthday parties. Last September he was so sick and they were rushing around to doctor’s appointments, but Josh made sure they went shopping for Spongebob birthday plates and party hats for Jess’ birthday.
Diane and Steve didn’t realize there would be so many toys for Josh on Sunday.
But Children’s Hospital has three playrooms, Diane says. And there’s the out-patient children’s cancer clinic, too, so they know the toys will be well loved.
Steve and Diane went to Washington last spring and lobbied their congressmen for more money for cancer research.
They are Nebraska team leaders for Cure Search, a group that fights to raise awareness and funds for children’s cancer research.
Kids cancer doesn’t get much money, Diane says.
People don’t realize, she said, that 12,400 children under the age of 20 are diagnosed with cancer every year.
She knows the number is small compared to other cancers, like breast cancer or lung cancer.
“But, still it’s one of the last places any money will go. They’ll say cure rates have gone up and they don’t say the percentage of kids with cancer has gone up too.”
When Josh was diagnosed, doctors told them if he had to have cancer, Wilms’ was one of the best kinds to have because it was so treatable.
Steve will return to Washington in January. He’ll meet with other state team leaders at a Cure Search gathering. They’ll go to Capitol Hill again.
He’s a shy man, Steve says.
Before Josh got sick, he wouldn’t dream of talking in front of a group of people.
“Now what do I have to lose?” he asked Sunday afternoon at his son’s party.
“If I can save another family from going through what we’ve gone through, I will.”
He’ll pack some of those white T-shirts in his suitcase. He’ll show off those three smiling faces, the three Nebraska kids with Wilms’.
His Josh passed away first.
Haley died in June.
Brooke’s funeral was yesterday.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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