Maitland artist supports BASE Camp for kids with cancer

John Sanchez saved a village Friday night. So did his sister Natasha. As small drops of rain filtered down through arching oak leaves above a tiny wooden stage at Sandy Bonus Fine Arts, children in war paint waited in the wings, ready to be heroes.

The onstage skirmish only lasted for a few moments. Wooden daggers rose and fell. The tiny African tribe fought off oppressors draped in black. And then they danced.

For kids like 10-year-old John, the little guy with the sheepish smile, life has been a much longer battle, played out in doctor’s offices and hospital beds. The good guys are all around them. The bad guy is the life-threatening disease they can’t see. Nobody knows how the plot will end, but they play on.

The cast list of the play “Roots of Rhythm” only had a few warriors, but all of the players have had to fight. John and Natasha, 13, the heroes, have sickle cell disease. Thirteen-year-old Danny, the surly hunter, had a brain tumor removed. Jordan, playing the proud father, has Hodgkin lymphoma. Tytianna, dancing and smiling behind vibrant pink streaks of war paint, has fought two forms of leukemia. Alec wasn’t feeling well, so his sisters Jamie and Cady attended for him.

“They’re amazing,” volunteer Meghan Moon said. “They’re going through so much.”

The 19-year-old volunteer has been with BASE Camp for four years. The Orlando-based children’s cancer support network helps kids find new friends with a similar bond, while supporting families through years of uncertainty.

Then there’s the one week a year that they look forward to, when the Bonus studio doors open up, and the kids swoop in. That’s when the transformation begins, as newcomers and veterans pour through the doorway of Sandy Bonus’ Maitland studio and into a chaotic floor-to-ceiling palette of dreams.

“This lets them just be normal kids,” Moon said. “They love coming to this camp.”

It’s the camp for kids just like them, BASE Camp coordinator Cindy Whitaker said. The kids who miss school for weeks at a time. The kids who never have time to go to parties with their friends. The kids who want to be kids.

“If kids come in here and their hair is gone, no one asks,” Whitaker said. “It’s their uniqueness, to understand other kids and not judge them. They just treat them like everybody else.”

Brushes fed by inspiration sweep color across canvas, led by tiny hands for the first time. Shaky feet dance across the stage as painted faces beam and arms flail wildly in character. Then they get lost in the world they create, Bonus said. The one where there is no cancer. No cold hospital beds. No chemotherapy.

“It’s one of the healthiest of all escapes,” Bonus said. “They’re escaping with this art.”

The ones who went away

“At the end of this week they always want to come back,” Bonus said.

She pauses.

“It’s always a victory when they come back.”

Whitaker knew the odds when her son, Danny, went in for the operation to remove his brain tumor. Doctors said he had only a 20 percent chance of survival if they didn’t remove it. He’s still here.

“He’s my walking, breathing miracle,” she said.

As the camp enters its eighth year, old friends say hi to new ones, sometimes comparing haircuts or who grew taller this year. They see paintings on the walls from years before. Sometimes they’re little reminders of someone they don’t see.

There’s a painting of a giant house, finished a year ago today. On it, scrawled in shaky brush strokes, an 8-year-old’s signature finished off a masterpiece. Someday Marlie’s family was going to live in her dream house. In the last picture of her, in a colorful pink-and-gray hat with a flower on top, she’s still smiling.

“All we can do is move forward and celebrate the ones we’ve lost,” Whitaker said.

Choosing to fight

To learn how to contribute or volunteer for BASE Camp, visit basecamp.org. In September there will be a BASE Camp charity event held to auction off the art created during Bonus’ camp. We’ll post the event information on our website as soon as it becomes available.

There were four new patients at Arnold Palmer Hospital last week, Whitaker said. All of them learning about the battle they’re about to begin.

“What happens to us and the way we respond to what happens to us is what gives us our power,” Bonus said. “There’s a little gap in between what happens to you and how you respond when you have to make a choice.”

She calls them little adults — the kids who keep fighting.

“I just think they’re amazing,” Bonus said. “I think they’re like heroes in my mind.”

And so Friday evening, as a passing storm refused to go away, budding stars nervously hid faces behind scary masks and intimidating paint, waiting for the spotlight.

A few hours before the show started, Natasha found out her blood sugar was above 300 milligrams per deciliter, more than triple the normal range. On top of her sickle cell disease, the perfectly healthy-looking teen had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes the day before. She squeezed her new “diabetes bear,” Rufus, and gave herself a shot so the show could go on.

“He was in the audience cheering me on,” Natasha said of her bear. “I’m glad I have him because he knows what I’m going through.”

But Natasha didn’t need much encouragement. Though she hides a bit behind a shy smile, she said she always wanted to be a singer or an actor. This was her time to shine.

When it was finally showtime, after a week of preparing for their breakout roles, the kids and their brave faces came out — the ones they’ve been showing their whole lives.

“They’re hurting,” Bonus said. “But when they’re having fun, it doesn’t hurt as bad.”

So Tytianna danced happily across the stage. Danny and Jordan stood proud and strong. And John and Natasha were heroes.