Most of you know about Chase’s wonderful wish: his “park” in the back yard. However, our connection to Make A Wish led to one other amazing thing…a thing we didn’t even know to wish for, but a thing that can only be described as an amazing dream. Chase was invited to come to the Macy’s on State Street, to the famed Walnut Room, and help light the three-story tree to kick off the holiday season in the store and start Macy’s “Believe” campaign. We would find out less than 24 hours before this occurred that he would be alongside Ryan Seacrest and American Idol winner Lee Dewyze.
How I wish that each of you could have been there with us and experienced this day!
Being ushered past long lines to our complimentary tables (I mean, like that isn’t a dream in and of itself!)…
Meeting staff, servers, people in marketing, store managers, corporate leaders: all so passionate about what they do in the world of Macy’s and how Macy’s affects the world…
Writing letters to Santa and mailing them with Lee Dewyze…
Watching Lee be super cool as Chase wanted to give him twelve high-fives one after the other… (That’s not an exaggeration. We counted.)
Having the Macy’s photographer take pictures of our family in front of the great tree and Karsten (in an elf’s hat, no less) sulking on the floor and refusing to smile…
Being told that Ryan Seacrest wanted to meet our family before the tree-lighting ceremony…
Being ushered into a media-filled room waiting to hear from Ryan Seacrest and watching him hunker down and focus on Chase…
Hearing Chase ask Ryan (there to launch a very classy line of menswear) if he liked his dirty, beat-up, favorite Spider-Man shoes…and hearing Ryan answer “Yes, I do!”…
Having to utter the phrase “Boys, remember that time when I told you that we don’t wrestle in front of Ryan Seacrest?”…
Our amazing server, Stephanie, who put up with our crazy table full of small children and saw to our every need…
Aidan falling off his dining chair…(more than once)
The beautiful store manager, Kim, who spoke of children like Chase with tears in her eyes…
Seeing people stacked several deep, lining the balconies that look down into the Walnut Room…and the bank of cameras and media personnel and very bright lights down in front…waiting…
Hearing the introductions from stage: “…Ryan Seacrest, American Idol winner, Lee Dewyze, and our special celebrity… Chase Ewoldt!”…and knowing they honored his fight with their words…
Listening to Lee dedicate his song to children like Chase and then sing the words: “I can’t stand up on my own don’t need to stand alone lift me up so I can see the light…Don’t be afraid…”…
Seeing our other children being invited on stage and knowing that their own often difficult lives as the siblings of a fighter were being honored…
Hearing Bob and myself being invited as well and not accepting as our fourth child, aka: “the grumpy elf”, refused to go anywhere near a stage…
Watching Ryan call “Five… Four… Three… Two…” and hearing the crowd chant the count, getting louder and louder with him…
Watching my children, surrounded by special people and so much love, start to depress the giant novelty tree-lighting button right around “Two…”…because it was too hard to wait…
Hearing Ryan’s voice call “One!” as the room transformed and the light shot up to the ceiling, three stories above us…
The cheering of the crowd…
Aidan running over to me with the guitar pick from Lee’s performance and his voice saying “Mom! Look what I got from my new friend!”…
Watching Ryan lift Chase to stand on the button (the size of a small column) and Chase’s arms going into the air, triumphant, as he watched the lights and heard the sounds… He’d pushed the button and he knew it. And the ceiling said “Believe”.
A truly precious day.
Moment by moment.
~Our family’s heartfelt thanks to Dana Kuhman Whitty, Ryan Blackburn and every beautiful soul at Make A Wish, Alyssa Horrall, Kim Groth, Martine Reardon and the entire Macy’s team who made us feel like cherished family, the beautiful Starr Royal-Burrell of Build-A-Bear who invited our children to come build bears (or dogs, or Olaf the snowman), the incomparable Ryan Seacrest and the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, and the wonderfully talented Lee Dewyze and his high-five skills.~
Note: We eagerly await (and look forward to sharing with you!) the official photographs from Macy’s at a later date…please, stay tuned.