Archdeacon: Family runs in Caleigh’s honor
Caleigh Hildebrandt’s mom runs for late daughter at Air Force Marathon.
After her daughter died of cancer, Bonnie Hildebrandt vowed to run along with her husband in the USAF Marathon their child loved.
She shut the door to her daughter Caleigh’s room in the ICU at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in an attempt to distance the two of them from the “terrible news,” as she called it, that was being delivered outside by a doctor to her husband, two older sons and daughter-in-law.
“He was telling them we needed to take Caleigh home now if we wanted her to be there when she passed away,” Bonnie Hildebrandt said in quiet, sometimes tearful recollection the other day. “I was in denial and I absolutely refused to go to that family meeting.”
So that left just her with her 24-year-old
daughter who had been in intensive care for 60 straight days with pneumonia and Stage IV carcinoma that had spread to several organs — all this on top of the debilitating spina bifida Caleigh had dealt with her entire life.
Although she no longer could speak, Caleigh could, when lucid, communicate by blinking her eyes and nodding her head, and that’s what she did when her mom suddenly asked:
“Are you afraid to die?” Bonnie is still surprised by the frankness of her question.
“The words just came out of my mouth,” she said. “We had never talked about death before. Even so, Caleigh just shook her head ‘No.’
“Then I said, ‘Are you afraid to leave momma and daddy because you’re worried about us?’ And she shook her head ‘Yes.’
“I said, ‘Don’t be afraid. We’ll hold each other up. We’re gonna miss you like crazy, but I don’t believe when you get to heaven you’re even going to know you’re without us. You’ll be so happy. There’ll be no more junk — that’s what she called cancer — and then boom, we’ll be there. If you missed people there, you’d be crying and there are no tears in heaven.’
Less than a week later — on Oct. 5 of last year — Caleigh was surrounded by her family in their Bellbrook home and died in Bonnie’s arms.
A few days later her life was celebrated at Christ’s Church, the nearby place of worship where she was so active. Hundreds of people who were touched by the courageous and joyous way she’d tackled life were there.
There were people from Bellbrook High, where she graduated in 2012, to those at McGo- han Brabender, where she worked as the Chief Happiness Officer and was dubbed “Little Miss Sunshine.” There were folks from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where her dad, a retired lieutenant colonel, now works as a civilian.
People around the world who had followed her story on social media, especially the way she embraced the U.S. Air Force Marathon and competed in 2016, reached out as well.
Everyone was drawn to Caleigh’s infectious smile, her love for others and her “no excuses” motto.
“If there’s an angel on earth, it’s Caleigh,” her dad once told me. “She’s here for a very special reason. She does God’s work,”
But once she was gone and the well-wishers had left, the family’s home was suddenly empty during the day and the “dark, cold winter,” as her father, Randy, described it, settled in.
The sense of loss and loneliness and despair hit Bonnie especially hard. She had been at her daughter’s bedside every waking moment for those two months in ICU.
“I was so devastated,” she said. “There were times I just stayed in bed, curled up and cried.”
Finally, in April, one day she was doing yardwork outside with a helper.
“I was out there praying and crying and trying to do some work, but I was just so sad,” she said. “And finally I was like, ‘Lord, just give me some kind of sign, something to hold onto.’
“And right about then I went to cut back this old, dried-up mum so new growth could come and I saw something sparkle in the ground almost like a diamond.
“I pulled it out and cleaned it off and screamed.”
It was a clear, mar- ble-like bauble — about the size of a 50-cent piece — that had a white angel in the middle of it. Nobody had ever seen it before or knew anything about it.
“We’re not ones to usually ask God for signs — that’s saved for the movies — but I do believe God let us know that Caleigh is with him and she’s OK,” Randy said.
Suddenly renewed, Bonnie eventually came up with a “crazy idea.”
In honor of her daughter who so loved the race, she was going to compete in Saturday’s U.S. Air Force Marathon. Never mind that she had never done a race before, not even a 5K.
“I don’t have an athletic bone in my body,” she admitted with a laugh.
Undaunted, she boldly asked her 72-year-old neighbor, Phil Rench — a former high school coach, athletics director and principal at various Miami Valley schools and a close family friend — if he would run the half marathon with her.
He agreed and soon was not only her walking partner, but something of a savior for her.
Over the next five months she went from barely able to walk a mile to regularly doing 10- and 11-mile training sessions
“That’s what this marathon is about to me,” she said before the race. “It means so much more than a medal.
“It got Caleigh through some tough times in her life and made her feel so proud and so included.
“And now it’s how I survived this past year. It got me up out of bed. It gave me purpose. It gave me new life.”
A special event tradition
The Hildebrandts’ connection with the Air Force Marathon actually began with the very first race in 1997.
“I remember it well,” Randy said. “Caleigh was in the Wright-Patt Hospital. Just 4 years old and terribly sick with a bladder infection. It was the beginning of a difficult life where she’d have to deal with lots of infections, broken bones and surgeries.
“That day I looked out the window and saw the marathon runners going by and thought, ‘One day Caleigh and I will do that race together.’ ”
Over the next several years Randy ran four Air Force Marathons, but as the fifth approached, Caleigh — then 23 and wheelchair bound — asked: “Hey Dad, when is it my turn?”
They both registered for the 2016 race, and in the early spring began to train in earnest, with him running and her bouncing along in the Burley stroller he pushed in front of him.
Caleigh made it a charity venture, deciding to raise funds for the Special Wish chapter of Dayton.
But two weeks before the race came the numbing diagnosis: She had Stage IV carcinoma that had spread to her liver, bladder and spine.
While her family feared the marathon venture was over, she refused to quit.
Then four days before the race — while getting a chemo treatment — she suffered a 40-minute seizure. She was being given morphine daily. In the predawn hours before the race, she got another chemo treatment. During the race, she twice had to stop for medical procedures.
Finally, after nearly six hours, she and her dad — accompanied by her brother, R.J., and two aunts — came down the corridor of planes to the finish line as scores of people began to chant her name, cheer and cry.
And just before the finish line Randy scooped her out of the stroller and carried her across. Her efforts got her a medal and raised $30,000 for Special Wish.
Last year she had planned to compete again, but her health nosedived, and on Aug. 5 she was hospitalized with pneumonia and the ever-spreading cancer. Although fading, she rallied enough to watch some of the race via FaceTime.
Nineteen days later, she died.
This year, Team Caleigh included some 10 competitors. Randy led the marathon group and Bonnie the half-marathoners. Their efforts raised funds for another project in Caleigh’s name.
Christ Church has built a new two-story preschool and child care center outside Bellbrook and named it Caleigh’s Place. It’s scheduled to open in January.
To make the entire school accessible to all kids, the building needs an elevator. Since no funds were available for that, Caleigh’s parents are spearheading an effort to raise $25,000 to install a lift.
To make a donation, go to caleighsplace.com and designate your contribution for the elevator.
Seeing it through
The heat and humidity were stifling at Saturday’s marathon, and by noon the surface temperature on the course was topping 106 degrees.
Soon after, the race was black-flagged. People in the very back of the pack were picked up by buses rather than left to broil for a couple of more hours in the sun. Everyone else was asked to slow to a walk.
Although she was competing in her first-ever running event, Bonnie wasn’t plagued by the extreme conditions.
“I feel great,” she said after race-walking across the finish line near the four-hour mark. “I feel really strong.”
Her gritty showing, she said, was due in part to her daughter.
Caleigh’s name was on a purple bracelet she wore on her right wrist, and Caleigh’s image and spirit filled her thoughts.
“The first half of the race I was sassy and having fun but the second half was more somber as I thought of her,” Bonnie said. “She loved this race and with Randy being her legs, she felt as if she was running it herself.”
Randy — who throughout the race carried the angel bauble that Bonnie had found — said he was fueled by his daughter, as well. It’s how — despite a likely torn meniscus and an Achilles problem — he ran the full marathon in five hours.
As she looked down at the medal that hung around her neck, Bonnie smiled:
“How about this jewelry? I’m going right to the cemetery and hang it on Caleigh’s grave.”