Talking with Sue Staehely and visiting with her "elves" makes one realize how much her son, Mark, is still very much with them. Some still find it hard to talk about the toy drive without tearing up because, as they will tell you, it meant so much to Mark.
He was apparently an engaging and big-hearted child who "had the holiday spirit 365 days a year," his mother says. He was a favorite of the doctors and nurses who cared for him during his six-year battle with Stage 4 neuroblastoma, a painful cancer that attacks the muscles and spinal cord. Mark endured three stem cell transplants, radiation and the loss of all his teeth, yet remission remained out of reach.
Sue was a little nervous that the struggling economy might diminish this year's toy drive. But once again Mark's hometown of Shorewood and the surrounding villages came through. The toy drive has broadened into a community-wide event.
For a frenetic three days, a scant eight or 10 friends and family members unload hundreds of bags and boxes sent by school bus and private car to the new Troy Township Fire Station, where they are temporarily stored. Then for two solid days, the little band of elves sorts thousands of toys by age and gender, and packs them in large gift bags.
In the five years since Mark died, the annual toy drive is a kind of homecoming for Sue and her elves. Medical staff welcome them with open arms, hugs, even jokes. A favorite nurse even gave up a day off to help unload and hand out the toy bags. Sue's eyes grew moist a few times during this year's toy fest, but mostly it was the parents of the patients getting the gifts who were moved to tears.
As for the little recipients themselves -- who suffer from cancer, Crohn's disease, bone marrow transplants among other illnesses -- it's unlikely any of them understand the full gravity of their own situations. All they know was that a bunch of grown-ups dressed in red and green with antlers on their heads gave them some of the coolest Christmas loot they'd ever scored. And all because of a guy named Mark.
Editor's Note:After his death, Mark's family began a foundation to raise money for pediatric cancer research called MarkYourMark7: . So far they've raised about $200,000, all of which has been donated to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.