South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Mermaids answer girl’s wish
There was something fishy at the Boca Beach Club, Saturday, but guests didn’t seem to mind because it was a pod of mermaids getting their swim on.
Among them was 5 -year- old Ta’liyah Baldwin who flew in from Memphis with her parents to realize a dream, courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“I was in disbelief,” said mother, Shanquindra Baldwin. “All she talks about is mermaids.”
Ta’liyah is battling an inoperable brain tumor that’s being treated with chemotherapy. It leaves her tired and she can’t keep up with her friends when they are playing, said father Tony Jones.
“She wasn’t moving as fast as they were and she was getting real frustrated so she just sat down and it made me break down but I try not to break down in front of her,” he said. “I’ll wait until she’s asleep or not around and then I’ll let go.”
Ta’liyah was diagnosed in November 2017 and has been undergoing treatment at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
“The medication made her drowsy, sleepy, moody and she didn’t want to do anything but stay in bed,” her mother said. “That wasn’t like her be- cause she was a very active child before all of this.”
Jones said the whole family was caught off guard when Ta’liyah suddenly lost her youthful energy and had trouble walking.
“It snuck up on all of us, the entire family, our friends, everybody,” he said. “It was hard but she actually told me, ‘I’m going to be okay. I’m going to be all right.’”
“She used to tell people, ‘I’m sick. I have a boo-boo in my head so I have to go to the doctor,” Baldwin said.
Ta’liyah spent Saturday morning with two women dressed as mermaids in the ocean surf at the Boca Beach Club, at 900 S. Ocean Blvd. in Boca Raton. They moved to the hotel pool where the mermaids helped Ta’liyah squeeze into her own custom-fitted fins to splash about.
“She said, ‘Mommy, I want a mermaid tail,’ and I said, ‘I’m going to get you one, baby, I promise you,’” Baldwin said. “Then [Make-A-Wish] called and told me about all this and my dream is coming true. She was going to be a mermaid and now she’s having the time of her life.”
More information about the MakeA-Wish Foundation can be found online at sfla.wish.org.