ARRvol34 master reduced - Flipbook - Page 32
key box, where young mothers nurse their babies, where children
share Goldfish crackers, where your best friend’s hope of seeing her
children grow up, get married, and give her grandchildren to bring
to the same Fairytale Town is crumbling. Your friend in the red
sweater mentions writing her bucket list and going to Disneyland,
then loses her composure and breaks down, sobbing quietly on your
shoulder for a long time. You wrap your arms around her thin shoulders, a few tears running down your cheeks.
Your little girl joins the two little boys on the slide, giggling,
climbing the stairs to Owl’s house over and over. Her yellow Pooh
dress flashes among the hedge branches. They go down once more,
then she notices the two of you crying. You nod to her sadly and
she approaches without any fear that the pellets of ice will freeze
her, too. She gives your best friend a big cuddly hug, looking up at
her with a sweet smile. Then she runs to the boys and stops them
before they go up the stairs again. She whispers something to them
and all three run to the lawn behind you, gathering bright, yellow
dandelions in their little hands. The youngest boy plucks a dandelion puff, which his Mommy taught him to blow on in order to make
wishes. Then they bring the sweet, cheerful flowers to the woman
in the red sweater. She takes them and smells them. When her little
son hands her the white fuzzy puff, she gasps, choking down a sob
as they blow on it together. Smiling through her tears, she gives all
three children a group hug.
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Now you know that coming to Fairytale Town, the magical storybook park, does not mean that you are in a place of real magic. Even
if your two families made it to Disneyland, you doubt that there
would have been enough magic there to grant you your wishes, the
wishes to get rid of cancer, to make the Mommy in the red sweater
healthy and happy. However, you can dream that this is your fairy
tale where you can change the ending. You can make the oncology
nurse give your best friend a phone call and tell her that the MRI
showed that the last round of chemotherapy worked, that the tu-
