How a Little Girl and a Scrapbook Changed My Life

I have always been creative. I come from a long line of Makers. Most of the creativity came from the necessity to make do with little. When you can’t afford something, you learn to make it from what you have – clothes from flour sacks, canning from the garden, making Christmas gifts. Without that ingenuity we would likely not have had new clothes when we grew out of them or food to eat. When you get used to making do you start to prefer that to what you can get in the store because there is love in that creation.

Usually, handmade items take countless hours to complete and its hard to say motivated to complete large projects. I used to have bags and boxes filled with partially completed projects because I would lose interest. Scrapbooking has changed all of that for me. Suddenly, a few hours would net a completed project and I was hooked. Soon scrapbooking also became the best excuse to spend entire weekend with my mom and sister. Not only were we preserving favorite family photos but sharing our versions of common memories and recounting stories.

In 2007 scrapbooking took on a whole new meaning for me…. Someone that I worked with my department was experiencing a heart wrenching crisis. Her 4-year-old granddaughter was diagnosed with an inoperable brain stem tumor. The entire department jumped in to support the family with donations of food, money and toys.

I had only worked there for two months. I did not know her well, but I still wanted to help. I wanted my contribution to last beyond the momentary relief of a paid bill or a soon forgotten toy. I just could not think of what that would be. In January, the little girl was granted a wish from the Make a Wish Foundation. When I heard this, I knew what I could do that no one else would think to do – make a scrapbook of their wish trip and of course she said, “Yes.”

The sweet little girl was Deja. Her wish was to have a tea party with the princesses. While we waited for the trip, I started to the collect supplies I would need and when they returned, I printed all 400 the selected pictures and began the work of putting the album together. To put this into perspective the average scrapbook can old around 80 to 100 pictures comfortably. This was going to be the largest album I had ever worked on. I was organizing my scrapbooking friends and my mom and sister. By the time we were done and ready to deliver this album was nearly 100 pages in length. I was so proud of the work put into the scrapbook. It was truly a work of art.

When the time came to deliver the scrapbook to Deja, I invited anyone that worked on it to come and present the book to her. We wound up with a party of three. None of us were sure what to expect, because Deja was not doing well, and that day happened to be a particularly difficult one for her. Her grandfather carried Deja down the stairs. You could tell that she clearly did not feel well. She could not walk or talk well because the tumor was now pressing on the parts of her brain that controlled those functions. However, the second she saw the scrapbook her mom was holding with all of the Disney princesses on it, her face lit up and she eagerly waited for her grandpa to carry her to her mom’s lap.

For the 15 minutes she sat on her mom’s lap pouring over the pictures of her wish, it was as if she forgot even for that short time how awful she felt, and all the fear and pain melted away. Deja and her mom were lost in happy memories and stories of this magical wish.

Somehow that 15 minutes put everything in perspective for me. I left with a yearning to do more… to capture the supreme joy of those sweet giggles and smiles from someone that suffered way more than most people endure in 80 years let alone 4.

When Deja passed away just four weeks before her 5th birthday. I wept at the little life ended way to soon and the overwhelming loss for her family. Her family could not have known that while Deja would not experience a lot of the first that family wishes for a child, she would inspire my life in a way that would impact lots of children and families all over the world.

Making that scrapbook turned into my new life’s mission. Because of Deja I started a nonprofit called Crops of Luv that creates Scrapbooks for children and family like Deja. Now Deja’s story lives on with every scrapbook and handmade embellishment that goes into each new wish book.

I am eternally grateful for her amazing gift to me…. a life of purpose.