Child's Play

I've donated to Child's Play for several years. My giving to this particular charity started as simply a desire to give a metaphorical finger in the eye to the journalists and activists who thought that anyone who listed "video games" as a hobby was either already a crazed sociopath or about to become one. Giving felt good; I read some of the testimonials on the site, and imagined what it must be like to be a kid about to have a major surgery or spend weeks getting IV drips at a hospital. I thought of the siblings and parents who would have to endure all of this stress. It made me feel like a hero to think that, thanks to me, some boy or girl would find their time at the hospital somewhat better.

This year, I didn't have to imagine. When my son Duncan was in the hospital being treated for a staph infection, I got to see all of that stress, fear, and boredom first hand. Duncan will not remember his time at Stanford, since he was far too young. But I can still clearly recall the stress of walking into that building at 2:00 AM, not knowing if my child was about to be crippled for life. I have a vivid impression of the utter exhaustion in Hanna's face when I finally arrived in the ER. I remember trying to hold my infant son and get him back to sleep while trying not to pull out any of the several monitor cables, IVs, or other tubing that made my kid look like he was about to become part of the Borg Collective. I remember feeling ill as the doctors told me about how they were about to run a plastic tube into my baby's wrist, up his arm and near his heart in order to give him the drugs he desperately needed. Of course, compared to many other patients and families I encountered during the hospital stay, I considered Duncan to be fortunate. The paper-thin five year old girl I met the day I took Duncan to the play room didn't have such a rosy prognosis; her leukemia, unfortunately, cannot be cured with the heavy doses of antibiotics that helped my kid. There were many others that made me feel fortunate, too; the kid that had developed an eating disorder because of his abusive father, the little girl that was having seizures the doctors couldn't explain, or the boy who had to have major eye surgery due to a freak accident while playing outside.

A children's hospital is full of thousands of such stories, and in my experience the smallest gestures of kindness or generosity can have enormous impact. A cup of tea after a sleepless night worrying about your child. A favorite novel to make you laugh and smile in the midst of stress and fear. A movie or video game to pass the long, long hours of waiting. A stuffed dragon or plastic rattle to calm a baby in the middle of something he can't possibly understand. Child's Play is a chance for you to make a real, meaningful difference to someone. It will make you feel like a hero, because you will be one.