A Prayer For Tyler

Last week my daughter Ally ran across a request from a young girl named Destiny. It was a request for someone to help her send her young brother, Tyler(just under 3 years old) to a BSB concert as she had asked him if he could make one wish what wold it be? And his answer was to go to a BSB concert and see the Backstreet Boys(even at this young age he has a great taste for music). Now you may wonder why would a young boy of 3 yrs old would want to see a BSB concert, well from the emails I have had with his sister I feel it's because it's all he has in his young life that makes him feel good, their music gives him the energy to get up and dance and sing when he is feeling so sick and weak, it gives him happiness when he is feeling whatever it is that is going through his young very sick brain, he loves the BSB music just like we all do and for the same reason we all love it and thats because the boys beautiful voices just have a way of going to our pains and making us feel better, making us feel good when we feel bad, it gives us that extra little push to help us go on just one more day, their voices just seem to go straight to our hearts and mend our woes. But why is it so different for this young BSB fan named Tyler? And why have I taken such an interest in this young boy I have never even seen? Well its because Tyler was born with cancer and it has spread throughout his small, under 3 year old body. He has to undergo treatments all the time that makes him sick and weak. But then you just put on any BSB music or if he sees them on the TV , he gets up and will sing and dance with them. So let us get back to the request his sister has made, at first I thought how could such a young child even know what he wants when asked a question like that? And as I was thinking trying to remember thoughts I had had or even anything I had done at that age it came to me, this boy is never even going to have the chance to have the thoughts I am having of trying to remember life at 3 years old as he will probably not even make it to his next birthday, the family has been told. I immediately went to the internet and started looking for tickets to send him to the BSB concert in Toronto. I found some but only two (for him and his mom, floor seats, don't ask how much, though I have negotiated them down a bit) anyways I wish I could afford to send the sister too and I told her this and she replied it was ok as she would get other opportunities to see them the next time they came around but her brother Ty (she calls him) wouldn't. I wish I could hug this girl (she is 14) I wish I coulkd lessen her pain she is having to live through. Oh and just to give ya'll a little background, the father is a police officer and a minister, the mother was a nurse but has had to quit to take care of young Ty , though she volunteers at the hospital when Ty is in it getting treatments that he so often has to take. The family even makes donations to other charities, including Brians Healthy Heart for Kids, hoping that they can somehow help Ty win his fight, but they can't. The only thing we can do now is offer our prayers to lessen the suffering to such a young boy with such a dreaded disease. When he first made his wish to see the BSB his parents contacted the Make A Wish Foundation, but they could only put Ty on a waiting list as there is so many sick children out there with wishes. I don't have a waiting list. I am going to give Tyler what he wished for in hopes of giving him at least one good memory of something he wished for before he goes up to heaven to be with God who will then give him all his wishes, for he will never grow up like us to have any other special memories. Now for my wish, as I also have a terminal disease called Lupus, it is in my lungs and joints and muscles , so I get a wish too right, I have never used my wish yet so here it is "I wish for someone to help me get this letter about Ty to the BSB to ask if they will give just a little bit of their time to this young fan of theirs when they play at Toronto. I know they are so busy and I know they cannot do things like this for all terminal and sick children because then they would never get to do what it is they do best and that is to bless the world with their gift of song. But still I have to try to do this for just this one child. And the Backstreet Boys should be honored that they have helped and touched the heart of such a young ,very sick, little boy with their music, I mean out of anything he could have wished for he wished just to see them because they make him feel better, just think how he'd feel if he actually got to meet them! I just pray they see this and think like I did , or try to think like I did about happy thinks that have happened to them throughout their lives and remember that his boy will never have the opportunity to have such thoughts and that they are the only ones that can give him just one more, of a limited number of happy thoughts he will ever be able to have . So please, spread this email around, post it on sites anywhere and maybe they will see it, but even if you do not want to do that please at least read this and before you go to bed at night or even right now ( God never sleeps and is always there for us), say a prayer for Ty and his family.