Small Gestures, Big Impact

It was another one of those days when Natalie Willis was wondering how she could possibly hold herself together another minute.

Her 7-year-old daughter, Mandy, had just completed her weekly nine-hour chemotherapy session at St. Joseph's Pediatrics Oncology Clinic, an ordeal guaranteed to leave the little girl feeling sick, cranky and needy for the next 12 hours.

That means she would need her mommy's undivided attention, which wasn't always Willis' to give with two other children, Zachary, 9, and Alannah, 14, demanding mommy time of their own. And, with her husband, Ronnie, traveling three weeks a month for his job, Willis was basically on her own.

"It's a difficult balancing act," said the Lithia Ridge resident, who left her job as an assistant kindergarten teacher in Tampa to take care of Mandy full time after she developed a malignant tumor on her optic nerve and numerous tumors in her brain stem area in February. The conditions are a result of Mandy's neurofibromatosis Type I, a disease caused by a lack of the DNA that suppresses tumor growth.

"It's hard to be the one left here to manage everything. The emotional well goes dry at the end of the day, and you're pretty much zapped," Willis said.

But just when she's at the end of her rope, just when she thinks she's about to fall apart, Willis said she inevitably receives a phone call, e-mail or knock on the door.

This time the call was from Rob Silver, owner of Dynamic Painting in Riverview and a member of the Greater Brandon Foundation Angel Network. He was at Wal-Mart and wanted to know if Willis needed him to pick up anything for her.

Willis nearly bursts into tears at the simple gesture. She hasn't been able to get to the grocery store for days and is in dire need of a gallon of milk.

"So Rob dropped off a gallon of milk," she said. "He had no idea what his phone call meant to me. It's so easy to make a huge difference in someone's life with such a small gesture."

That was the idea behind the Foundation Angel Program started by Greater Brandon Community Foundation founders Anne Nymark and Arlene Waldron. Although the mission of the foundation is to raise money and build an endowment to help all nonprofit organizations in Brandon, Nymark and Waldron acknowledged that money isn't the only way neighbors can show each other they care.

Individuals and businesses sign up to become "foundation angels," offering services to residents facing extreme medical crises. The program then matches with them with individuals or families.

The Willises are relative newcomers to the area. They moved to Valrico from Dallas four years ago when Ronnie Willis left his job as a reporter with the Dallas Morning News to accept a position with a media technical support company. They had no idea there were human angels walking around Brandon.

"We came home from about a week in the hospital back in March, and our pool pump had died," Natalie Willis said. "Under most circumstances, it might have been a curse word muttered under your breath, a swift kick to the pump and then a call to the repairman. For us, that day, it was just one more thing we couldn't deal with. We had neither the money nor the time."

Mandy loves to swim, and the couple hated to deny the little girl who had been through so much the activity she looked forward to throughout her hospital stay.

While surfing the Internet, Willis came across a Web site for 4-year-old Seffner resident Peyton Mayhew, who is fighting acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and she contacted Peyton's mother, Anissa. The two became fast friends. The Mayhews have been beneficiaries of Foundation Angels, and Anissa Mayhew recommended Willis contact it.

"In a matter of a week, our pool was fixed and the water was balanced just in time for Mother's Day," Willis said. The two families spent that day splashing in the pool.

"What an amazing gift that was," she said. "The knowledge that someone, or several someones, cared and wanted to help was the biggest blessing of all."

Willis later became acquainted with Silver through the angel program when she needed help installing a ceiling fan in Mandy's bedroom. Silver volunteered to install it.

"Rob's kind of appointed himself my surrogate big brother ever since," Willis said. "Recently, he's decided he needs to paint our house."

Silver isn't her only angel. Willis said at a community foundation luncheon that just when she's at her wit's end, she inexplicably receives a message from a foundation angel.

"I'll get an e-mail or a gift card or something, and I know there's an army of love behind it," she said.

During one stage of chemotherapy, Mandy refused to eat anything except Macaroni Grill's cheese ravioli. Suddenly, gift certificates to Macaroni Grill appeared in the mailbox.

"And after chemotherapy, someone always calls to ask if I need something because everyone knows it's difficult for me to leave Mandy," she said. "Those little things mean the world. They're like little miracles. It's so easy to make a huge difference in someone's life. It's not so much what people do; it's the fact that they're willing to step in and help without expecting anything in return. That's huge."

Since Mandy was first diagnosed with neurofibromatosis at age 1, Willis said she always knew there was a possibility that a tumor could become malignant, that her daughter may one day fight for her life.

"I knew the potential was there," she said. "And I really thought I was prepared, but it still smacked me upside the head in a way I never thought it would."

At the same time, Willis said she never anticipated the joy, friendships and laughter she would experience in the midst of crisis.

Recently, for example, when she and Anissa Peyton and the kids were having lunch at a local restaurant, the waiter innocently quipped that the sauce had so much garlic it could cure cancer.

Peyton and Willis burst into laughter and told him to give them extra portions.

"You cry when you have to, you laugh whenever you can and you just go on," Willis said. "Every journey brings a blessing, and this journey has shown us how much goodness there is in the world, how much goodness there is in people."

She and Mandy recently went into Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brandon so Mandy could get a book to read during her hours of chemotherapy. As the mother and daughter stood in line to order a treat at the Starbucks counter, Mandy stated with certainty that she thought the book she chose would be ideal to read during chemo.

"Mandy didn't think anything about discussing chemo," said Willis. "It's just part of our vernacular. But the woman behind us overheard and asked me if Mandy had cancer. I told her she did, and the woman said she would keep Mandy in her prayers and told me her son was a 10-year survivor of leukemia. I nearly cried."

The program is always in need of angels who offer a variety of goods and services, including lawn care, gift certificates to restaurants, rides to the doctor, haircuts, companionship, meals, babysitting, dry cleaning, laundry services and car repairs.

To register, go to www .brandonfoundation.org or call Diana Niles at (813) 661-8683.