The ones without hope, who get a wish from some charity or other, and they and their families come here. Sometimes, it’s a little girl who wants more than anything to spend her special day with her favorite princess. That’s way too much pressure to put on a twenty-one-year-old aspiring actress in a hoop skirt. I shouldn’t be responsible for making a dying child’s dream come true.I’ve done it twice now. The first was two months ago. Elizabeth, age ten, suffers from the final stages of a rare blood disease. Her mother just sent the park a letter saying she’s in the hospital again and keeps a picture of the two of us by her bed to cheer her up.The second is Abby. She has leukemia. She’s already had a bone marrow transplant, and it didn’t work. The cancer relapsed, and the doctors aren’t hopeful. Her family made the request to visit the park, and she asked to spend part of the day with me. Rather, I happened to be on shift the day that she asked to meet my persona. That’s all it is, luck of the draw.
