It takes a village When cancer struck four-year-old Christopher Grimes, Stowe wrapped its arms around him and his family STORY:
Robert Kiener |
PORTRAIT:
Glenn Callahan
s his teachers will tell you, Christopher Grimes was that boy; the one who always looked after other students. The one who made sure everyone had someone to play with. On four-year-old Adelaide Kissell’s first day in nursery school, Christopher spotted the shy “new kid” and jumped up from his playgroup, took her hand, and got her to join in. “Christopher Grimes was a very special little boy,” says one of his nursery school teachers. Alissa Kissell, Adelaide’s mother adds, “He was just so thoughtful of others, so gentle. Everyone loved him.” So it’s not surprising that when his 23 nursery school classmates learned that four-year-old Christopher was “sick and in the hospital” they decided to send him something special. With the help of local quilters the kids put together a colorful quilt made up of squares containing their painted handprints and names, leaving one square blank so Christopher could add his own handprint and name. As students said, “This will help keep Christopher warm,” and “show him we are thinking of him.” In the center of the quilt was a poem:
A
GLENN CALLAHAN
I have a hand and you have the other. Put them together and we have each other. A circle is round; it has no end. That’s how long I want to be your friend.
72
Several days later in his room at Boston Children’s Hospital Christopher’s bright blue eyes widened when his mother Kristin showed him the quilt, covered with tiny handprints and names. “My friends!” he said as Kristin and her husband C.J. draped the quilt around their son. Kristin remembers, “It was as if all his nursery school classmates were hugging him, telling them they were missing him.” Christopher loved the quilt and often Kristin or C.J. would walk into his hospital room and see him lying in bed placing his hands over the handprints of his classmates. Says Kristin, “He’d look up and tell us, ‘This is how I know my friends miss me.’ Then he’d ask us, ‘When can I go back to school?’ ” At moments like this, Kristin, with C.J. at her side, would fight back tears, knowing that it could be a long time before Christopher could return to school in Stowe. Just a few months earlier he’d been diagnosed with stage-four neuroblastoma, a malignant, aggressive cancer that had spread to his bones. Survival rates for this rare type of cancer are, as one medical site explains, “heartbreaking,” and are between 25 and 50 percent. And because Christopher’s cancer was diagnosed as stage IV he could never be declared “cured.” The best the family could hope for was NED (No Evidence of Disease) status. Even worse, relapses are common, occurring in 70 percent of neuroblastoma cases. Few who relapsed survived. As their doctors bluntly told Kristin and C.J., “With this cancer it’s important to be realistic, not optimistic.”
BEADS OF COURAGE C.J. and Kristin Grimes, with a photograph of their son Christopher in their Stowe Hollow home. Each of these beads was given to Christopher after a medical procedure. The more simply-shaped ones represent something as common as a blood transfusion; the more ornate ones represent a more serious procedure, such as a bone marrow transplant, chemotherapy, or radiation treatments. Each bead signifies a different story in Christopher’s long battle ©STOWE GUIDE & MAGAZINE SUMMER/FALL 2014 against cancer. For more information, go to beadsofcourage.org.
73