1/02/2012

KidsGames

Brian is one of my best friends since childhood, and lives in Reno, NV. We usually see Brian and his family during our annual Lake Tahoe trip over Christmas, but schedules didn't work out this year and we missed seeing them while up in the (snow-less) North. Brian's daughters - Jillian and Sabrina - know of Max but never met him. They requested to hear a story about Max, and I thought rather than email, I'd post the story here.

Hannah and Max went to KidsGames: a week-long vacation bible school-like day camp held at our church where Hannah, Max and then Nicky went to pre-school. KidsGames ended at noon every day. One day during the summer in 2007, after I got home from work, Hannah and Max were in the backyard still in their camp tees and being very, very silly. We played a game where I would try to take a picture of Hannah on a play structure. Max would then yell "aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh" and attempt to run in front of the camera right at the moment when I snapped the picture.

The first photo attempt caught Hannah and the photographer by surprise.

Pretty soon we caught on to Max's game.

Still, Hannah and I thought we'd get a photo in before Max could make another pass...

But it was impossible to snap a photo just of Hannah on the play structure. Max continued to run screaming through each photo frame.



Eventually Hannah wanted to give it a shot, so she and Max switched places.

Then they both started making crazy screaming noises, and running in front of my camera.




Even though Max was on oral chemo drugs at the time, it still made him tired. We never knew if he would be wiped-out after KidsGames, and have to take a nap.

This afternoon, August 1, 2007, was one of those all-too-rare "normal" days in the middle many abnormal days.

Max wasn't a kid fighting cancer this afternoon. He was Hannah's little brother, Nicky's big brother, a son, a cousin, a crazy 6-yr old screaming and running around the backyard with his sister in the early-evening summer light.