Special days for Boston
“What does this do?” Boston Riddick asks, pointing to any of the numerous pieces of equipment in the Niagara Falls Fire Department pumper truck.
“How does that work?” he asks again, pointing at another object that caught his attention.
The firefighters answered each and every question from the inquisitive little boy with messy blonde hair, and Boston listened intently to their replies, fascinated by the experience while visiting the firefighters at Fire Station No. 1 on Good Friday.
Firefighter Tracy Schlachta showed him the switches that control the emergency lights, and let him wear the headphones used to communicate with dispatch while firefighters race to emergency calls.
Firefighters Sam West showed him the thermal imaging camera, and Vince Moyer even helped Boston blast a fire hose into the air, over the fire station’s driveway. And after all that, the firefighters took the nine-year-old for a ride in their pumper truck.
The visit was organized by Boston’s music teacher Anthony DiCarlo, who has quickly become a friend of the family since the happy and outgoing boy first walked into the Niagara Rock Academy in Chippawa about six months ago.
The visit to the fire hall was a chance to create a precious memory for Boston, his father Chris Riddick and Chris’s girlfriend Paulina Kalucka.
And for the family, every moment and every memory they share is precious.
Boston has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, an incurable neuromuscular disorder that causes muscle degeneration, cutting the lives short of boys inflicted with the hereditary disease.
Although Boston remains bright-eyed and happy, the disease is starting to take its toll on him. Boston’s calf muscles are already weakening, affecting his gait.
Within a year he will likely require a wheelchair, and in years to come Boston’s muscles will continue to deteriorate throughout his body.
The life expectancy of someone with Duchenne muscular dystrophy is 15 to 26 years.
And Boston’s father knows precisely what’s to come.
His oldest son Gibson - Boston’s older brother - died on March 2, 2016, from complications associated with the same disease. He was 16 years old. “It’s not fair, it’s not right,” Chris says.
He hoped his oldest son would at least make it to his early 20s. “He was doing good,” Chris says. He recalls taking Gibson to see a show on a Sunday. Three days later, Gibson was dead.
It was devastating to the family, and especially Boston.
“They were like best buddies,” Chris says. “They did everything together.”
Boston still cries once in a while, missing his big brother.
But considering all that he has been through in his short life — the loss of his brother, his own struggles with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and the divorce of his parents, Chris and his ex-wife Sherry — Chris says Boston has shown a great deal of strength and courage. “He’s been through so much.” Boston is a Grade 3 student at Lockview Public School on Bunting Road in St. Catharines, where he spends his favourite hours of the day in the school library.
“I like to look at the books, because they’re cool,” Boston says. “I like books and stuff, lots of books.” Boston also loves music. “I like Kiss,” he says, referring to the iconic 1970s rock band.
But his musical taste doesn’t end there.
“I like Poison songs, and I like Bon Jovi, too,” he says.
After a brief pause, Boston’s list of favourite bands continued to grow with the addition of The Beatles and The Jackson Five, to name a few.
And considering Boston’s love of music — which included watching the movie School of Rock repeatedly — Chris thought enrolling him in music lessons might be a good idea.
He searched the Internet for “school of rock Niagara,” and DiCarlo’s website was at the top of the list.
“I gave Anthony a call and he was super, very compassionate.”
DiCarlo was blown away by his new student.
“He’s very sharp,” he says. “He remembers everything, and he’s a jokester at the same time. He’s hilarious. The things he comes up with is amazing.”
DiCarlo, however, wasn’t content just to teach Boston how to sing and play drums.
In 2010 and 2011, the community rally behind the Riddick family to help when their home needed to be renovated to accommodate Gibson’s needs.
As a result, they already have a lot of the equipment needed to accommodate Boston.
But since leaving that renovated house with his wife following the divorce, Chris — who shares equal custody of Boston — now faces the huge expense of making changes to his new St. Catharines home to accommodate Boston’s needs.
He needs a wheelchair lift to allow Boston to access the second floor of his home.
“I had two people come in who quoted me $14,000 just to get him up five stairs,” Chris says.
The bathroom will need renovations to accommodate a wheelchair, too.
Chris works full time at a very supportive Burlington company, Thordon Bearings, but covering the costs of upgrading his home for Boston is an expense that he can’t afford. Although there are organizations that help with expenses like that, Chris says they’re usually earmarked for people on social assistance programs.
And despite his struggle Chris says he can’t bring himself to ask for help again, after seeing the overwhelming generosity of the community in 2011.
“I’ll get through it. I’m not someone who would give up,” he says.
“Never give up,” incidently, was Gibson’s motto. It’s tattooed on Chris’s left arm, written in Mandarin, beside a portrait of Gibson.
Despite Chris’s reluctance to ask for help, DiCarlo has no such hindrances in doing that.
“I did it on my own,” DiCarlo says. “It’s just something I wanted to do, once Boston started coming in here and I learned the story … what he’s going through and what the parents will need to accommodate him in a year or two.”
He launched a Go Fund Me account for Boston which has already brought in $1,020, including about $500 pitched in by DiCarlo through his music studio.
DiCarlo set a goal of $25,000 for the fundraising initiative, but he’s not concerned if it doesn’t bring in that much money.
“Things like that take a while to catch on,” he says. “I think if we just let it circulate for a little bit, it’ll do something better than nothing.”