Throughout December, WTOP is bringing you “Wish Wednesday,” where we spotlight what Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic does for families in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. If you would like to help make a wish kid’s dream come true, please visit the foundation’s website.
Few of us will ever feel love as strong as the love parents have for their children. Look at the picture on top of this page and you will see two happy moms and an equally happy dad in the front row.
Now, of course, the children look happy, as most do when you say, “cheese.” But the parents were thrilled because they had just shared the story of how their children became “Wish kids.”
For Frank Keller, Kesha Weeks and Lisa Gibson, they started their stories with what, for most parents, would be a nightmare: the diagnosis.
For Keller’s 14-year-old son, it was in March 2024 when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“Ben had been showing some symptoms. It was pretty soon thereafter that we got it diagnosed, and it was just one of those moments that always sticks with you, that phone call,” Keller said.
For both Weeks and Gibson, their daughters were diagnosed at birth.
“Overwhelming” was how Weeks described finding out her now 16-year-old daughter had a blood disorder.
“Not knowing what that would look like for her, knowing some of the characteristics of her diagnosis,” Weeks said. “As a mother, bracing for those moments where she may be in pain, and as an infant, you know, not to be able to understand what’s happening with her body, not able to articulate what’s going on.”
Gibson described when she found out her now 11-year-old daughter Haley had cystic fibrosis as gut-wrenching.
“She was my first baby,” Gibson said. Hospital staff came in, took her immediately to the NICU, and she spent 10 days there with what they said was pneumonia.
Luckily, for all three Wish kids, they are now doing well, healthwise.
While each family shared their story individually during a Make-A-Wish open house at WTOP, the kids were all asked the same question: What advice would they give to someone their age who was diagnosed with the same illness they had?
The maturity they showed while giving their answers would make you proud to have them in your family, and may even make you question the next time you complained about something silly in your life.
The parents were asked a similar question: What advice would they give someone whose child was diagnosed with the same illness as their child?
“Stay off Google, it’s my first one,” Gibson said. “Listen to your doctors, your nurses ask questions. No question is off the table and just pray.”
Gibson also advised to connect with other parents and join Facebook groups.
“Don’t hide it. I mean, it’s OK, because we’re all in this together,” Gibson said.
“The times are scary. You don’t know what’s coming ahead. If you have a faith, you have to lean on it,” Keller said. “We had to learn to receive from other people, receive help, receive support.”
“There’s no situation that you will be faced with (about) your child that you are not equipped to handle it, even if you don’t feel like it in that moment,” Weeks said. “Know that you’ll make it. You’ll be OK.”
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