Life changing experiences don’t happen quite as often as we’d like. Each one of us waits for that moment to happen—the one where we take it all in and realize that our lives will never be the same.
Wednesday, March 28, I had a life changing experience. I didn’t quite realize that I did until I was sitting on my mom’s bed telling her about everything I had done that morning. It didn’t fully sink in until I was sitting across from my boyfriend and my eyes started to water when I said, “this is why we do it.”
Before going further into the story, there’s something I should clarify. I became a Morale Captain for the FIU Roarthon 2018 committee in the fall, and since then, every week, the kids have been all that I think about.
Roarthon benefits the Children’s Miracle Network Hospital, our local hospital being Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, and it is a crazy 17-hour marathon of being with great people and helping a great cause.
I got the opportunity to go on a ‘hospital visit’ with three other fellow Morale’s and we had the best time.
Setting up was nerve-wracking; I was so excited to interact with the kids I couldn’t contain myself. The activity was to make slime using water, cornstarch and food coloring. And so, we made slime with all the kids that came to us. I should probably disclose that prior to this day I had never made any.
We ran out of cornstarch within 30 minutes of being there and things definitely didn’t go how we planned them. Warning: making slime is very messy, and kids will most likely know more about the steps than you will.
There were three young boys who were very entertaining to be with. You don’t realize how funny kids are until you take the time to disconnect from the world and connect with them. They showed me how great their slime was, as they fought for my attention. One told me that he had a phone and showed me his games and then the other one said, “I have a phone too. You should look at my games.” Our entire interaction went like that. One trying to out-do the other as they cared about what I thought. When it was time to say goodbye, one of the boys let go of his mom’s hand and ran to give me a hug.
Then there was Arie, the cutest little girl, who changed my heart forever. A head full of thin, blonde hair and a set of bright, blue eyes do more to you than you’d think. Full of energy, ready to get her hands on everything, she was the ray of sunshine I didn’t know I needed. After spending two hours with her and the rest of the kids, I finally know why I do Dance Marathon.
My “Why” is because kids like Arie are in the hospital every single day for eight hours because they’re fighting for their life. So I will stand up for 17 hours to fight alongside her and the rest of the Nicklaus kids.
The cover photo is my own.
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Desi