MinnieMantle

Tl;dr- girl's wish was to meet Minnie. She met her at breakfast, died that afternoon.

So during my first CP, I was working at Chef Mickey's one morning. I'm doing the rotation, see a family with a girl who was really sick. Like, family was feeding her using a g-tube, she was in a wheelchair, didn't respond to much. She was fussy, so I indicated to the family that I'll pass their table, then come back to them ("how do you do that?" You point in the direction you're going to go, make a circle motion around the section, then gesture that you'll come back here).

About 10 minutes later, my attendant comes up to me, and says "Princess (name) would like to see you now." So I go over to the family. The mom told me that Minnie Mouse was the girl's favorite character, can I take some pictures with her? Of course! So the older brother (teenager) is filming all of this, and I'm interacting with the girl, and the girl smiles. The mom starts bawling, the dad starts crying.

Once I take a few pictures with the girl, I go to hug the mom, who hugged me back tight and said "the doctors said she couldn't smile anymore. Thank you." Then when I went to hug the dad, he hugged me back tight and said "thank you. So much. You have no idea what this means to us." Folks, there's a difference when a person is talking to the character, talking to the person in the costume, and talking to YOU. The dad was talking to ME.

So I go back on rotation, cursing that I can't wipe the tears out of my eyes.

The next day, I go into work, and the check in person says "do you know where the manager's office is? They want to talk to you." My first thought was oh shit. What did I do?

I go to the manager's office, and he closes the door behind me. "You were Minnie at Chef Mickey's yesterday for breakfast, right?" Yes. "Did you meet a Give Kids The World family?" Yes. "Give Kids called us yesterday afternoon. They wanted to make sure you were personally thanked, with a note on your record." Why? "The girl had an inoperable brain tumor. It was affecting a lot of her motor function. Her family's wish was for her to meet Minnie Mouse. Yesterday afternoon, while they were in the park, they noticed she was getting sleepy, so they went back to their room so she could take a nap. I'm sorry, (me), but she never woke up. She held on long enough to meet Minnie, and you made that happen." (Fuck, guys, I'm starting to choke up. 11.5, almost 12 years later, and I still cry).

I was offered to speak to a grief counselor, but I declined. It's really heavy, to know that a child was so close to death, that they hung on just to meet their favorite character. And to know that you were the reason they felt they could depart.

So yeah. Whenever I was having a bad day at work, I would think about this girl, and this family, and say to myself, "this is why you do this. Because of people like her."

Oh man, one of my favorites (that doesn't end in death...I have one of those too) was when I was White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. A family came up to me, and the daughter, who was maybe 8, was blind. She had a cane, and I could see her well enough to know that she was born with some severe eye deformities, so seeing anything was unlikely.

So I gently took her hands in mine, and placed her hands on my cheeks, ears, nose, mouth, to let her feel my face. She got to the glasses, and her face lit up. Her dad said "what is it, honey?" And she replied, "Dad! The rabbit wears glasses! He can't see good, just like me! Rabbit, can you see without your glasses?"

I shook my head no. She was just beaming, and said "You're like me! This is the best!" The attendant went over to the parents and told the parents which other bespeckled characters the family could meet, and where.

So yeah, pretty awesome, huh?

I also once had a little boy in a wheelchair zoom up to me, stop short, look up at me, and say "Mickey, Mom and Dad asked me what I wanted before I go meet Jesus, and I said I wanted to meet you!"

Again, when I questioned why I was sweating my ass off, eyes burning because a drop of sweat hit my contact, I thought of kids like this.

You explained it perfectly (says someone with hypermobile EDS)

Allll the time. Those obnoxious guests who won't go away? You curse at them under your breath. I've flipped off the camera before, too (as Pooh or Piglet). There was one time that the guest heard me, but it was deliberate. My brother came up to me to take a picture, and asked me how I'm doing. I whispered back "it's so fucking hot in here, you have no idea." There's a picture in our parents' house somewhere where you can see my brother's expression. It's pretty funny. He apparently went back to our parents and said "Mickey just cursed at me. And he sounded like my sister."