It began five and a half years ago. I was forty-one years old and had reluctantly accepted the fact that I would probably never be a Dad. As is so common with things like this, we found out about this time that a baby was on the way, a girl, due on the Fourth of July – which also happens to be our anniversary. We were surprised, ecstatic – and overwhelmed and scared to death, too..!
My wife is quite a bit younger than me, but I was busy doing the math – let’s see, I’ll be sixty when she enters college, retired when she gets married, older than dirt when she has her first kid…. Man, this was huge. I had played all those years I shoulda been a Dad, and now when it was time to plan for retirement, well, now I was gonna become a Dad. Go figure… They say God works in mysterious ways, and He was about to bestow upon us one of His greatest miracles of all time. One Miss Rebecca Marie Bruyere. Finally – after all those years, we were finally gonna be a Mom and Dad – Wow!
Well, as is her way, little Miss Becca couldn’t wait – she arrived on June 3rd, 2001, more than a month early, and just in time for her baby shower. She was beautiful, perfect in every way. Those feedings every two hours throughout the night were pretty rough on an old goat like me, and on Mandi, too, but she was worth every sleepless minute.
Things progressed normally at first – up until the Holiday season, 2002, when we began to notice something unusual about her eyes, sort of a white glow in them. She was diagnosed with bilateral Retinoblastoma on New Years Eve, around 10:30PM, a moment that – as the any parent of a child with cancer will tell you – would drastically change our lives forever. They told us they would probably have to remove both of her eyes, but that we needed to focus not so much on her growing up blind, but on whether or not she was even going to live, as her cancer was extremely advanced. The doctor suggested we make the most of every minute we had with her. Happy New Year to us…
Well, Becca is one very tough cookie – as her doctor will attest to. Over the next four years, Becca has been through six months of chemo, several hundred surgeries, and two rounds of intense radiation, She has battled through two relapses, and has come out fighting each time. She still has the use of her left eye, which her miracle worker doctor managed to save through it all. Though visually impaired, she lives life to the fullest and is in every other way a normal, rambunctious five year old. She will always live with the big “C” hanging over her head, but she doesn’t let it bother her. And through it all, she has been the inspiration to hundreds, even thousands of people with her never-ending will to fight, her toughness, her innocence, and her overwhelming generosity, her constantly always thinking of others first.
When granted a wish by the Make A Wish organization, her wish was typical of Becca: simply “to grant all the other kid’s wishes, because they are very sick and they need to have fun.” Mandi and I are so very proud of her, and we ask everyone in Becca’s name to please contribute to the cause, and help make Becca’s wish come true by giving your donations to the Make A Wish organization of Idaho. Thanks to you all, and Happy Holidays from our family to yours!
Sincerely,Brett
