Christmas time-shifted for ailing boy
ST. GEORGE, Ont. — Tuckered after a cheery Christmas dinner on Monday, seven-year-old Evan Leversage curled up on a couch and slept. On Saturday, Santa plans a special trip here, after a Christmas parade that will wend through a town already festooned with twinkling lights and evergreen, right past Evan’s house where he is expected to cheer on the floats as grand marshal.
“And there will be snow,” said Evan’s mom, Nicole Wellwood, the result of a promise by a movie company that was in town filming.
It’s a remarkable, timeshifted Christmas for a boy whose time is short.
“It’s been quite the emotional roller-coaster. It’s a huge response to a simple wish. It really is a Christmas miracle,” said Wellwood, her eyes tearing but her voice strong.
Shortly before his second birthday, Evan was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
He fought through chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He managed to attend school for a couple of years before the tumour roared back, prompting another round of treatment.
Over the summer he felt good. His medical scan on July 20 looked promising.
In September he started Grade 2 back in school in this town about 100 kilometres west of Toronto.
Two weeks into classes, however, Evan started having mobility problems with his right arm and leg. It signalled the tumour had grown and spread. Doctors told his mother they had run out of treatment options.
“It’s news you don’t even know how to grasp.”
Since then, she and her sons — Evan has two brothers, Logan, 9, and Tyson, 5 — set about making life as joyous as it can be.
“When you know the inevitable, you have to make the best of every day,” she said. “It means waking up every day and putting on a happy face; we’re bound and determined to not let it take away the joy and fun we have until the end.”
Evan had a few wishes, some simpler than others: He wanted to visit Niagara Falls, eat at Chuck E. Cheese’s, see the new movie Hotel Transylvania 2, become a policeman, and enjoy a super family Christmas.
Last weekend, the family stayed in the Falls. He went to see the animated movie with his buddy. This weekend, the local police force plans to make him an honorary officer, complete with a pint-sized uniform.
Then the family planned for Christmas.
“Cancer is a monster and I can’t just leave it up to chance that he’ll have one last Christmas and that he’ll be in a state to enjoy it,” Wellwood said.
She organized a family Christmas dinner that turned into a crowd of 70.
“We wanted to give him a little bit more of the atmosphere of Christmas,” she said, explaining why she decorated her house like it’s Christmas Eve: inflatable kid-themed statues are out front, a cheery Christmas tree in the living room and a large Merry Christmas banner stretches across the kitchen counter. Some of the neighbours pitched in, putting their decorations up, too, so Evan would see the lights through his window.
And then everyone seemed to join in.
Wellwood’s cousin, Shelly, handed out flyers thinking others might help add some Christmas cheer to Evan’s life. Brandy King, owner of La Petite Fleur, a downtown florist, read one. She posted it on Facebook, where the notion was embraced, around town and around the world.
The downtown core had a Christmas decorating party on the weekend. Storefronts along the high street turned into North Pole scenes.
King built a festive display outside her shop.
A sign wishing Evan a Merry Christmas fills the window of Village Hair Studio. Inside, manager Alisha Sauciukas said she cut Evan’s hair a few times.
“We put it up so Evan knows the town loves him,” she said. “We want to help give Evan something to be happy about, to be in the now and not in the future. And to let the family know they are not alone.”
On Sunnyside Drive, Evan’s street, a couple was pulling Christmas decorations out of a large cardboard box in their garage on Wednesday. Enje Jones held a wooden Santa in place while her husband, Robert, pounded away with a hammer to affix it to their frontporch railing.
They don’t know Evan but are moved by his story.
A Christmas parade was soon being planned. Interest was so great the town had to limit the number of floats being prepared.
Evan and his family are now receiving cards, messages and presents — and photos of houses with Christmas lights put up early — from around the world.
“It’s a bit overwhelming,” Wellwood said.
The attention is a bit tiring for Evan, but he likes it.
He also wonders, though, what the fuss is about. He knows it’s unusual for people to keep bringing him Christmas presents and for Christmas to come so early.
“Why?” he asked his mom.
“I told him, ‘Because you have a whole town that loves you.”
“This is how I want to remember him — happy and excited.”