Last night Mason and I got
to hang out and have fun. He had a pretty boring day and was tired due to a
lack of platelets. He got them before I arrived, however, and when I got there,
I saw a completely different Mason than the one who had been texting me all
day. The day began to look a little brighter.
Earlier this week, Mason
told me that he figured out how to take “selfies” in the dark. If you invert
the colors of your screen on your iPhone, the black you once saw becomes white,
enabling you to see your face when the picture is taken then the screen
re-inverted. When my dad went to get dinner for us, Mason and I turned all of
the lights off. We started to take pictures and see whose selfie could be the
most ugly. I swear the entire hall could hear us laughing; we were so loud. At
one point Mason’s cough, which had been stopped when the doctors gave him an
allergy medication, came back pretty badly due to so much laughter. It got to
the point where Mason told me to stop taking pictures because they were making
him laugh so hard, which only made him cough harder. I don’t know if any of you
can comprehend how I felt last night, but I couldn’t tell you the last time I
was that happy, seeing him smile and genuinely laugh. It was the brightest day I had all week.
Mason should be able to
video chat into his classes now. I think today was going to be his first day
doing so. He’s going to keep up with his school work and finish freshman year,
regardless of where he finishes it! I’m sure he’s going to miss gaming all day
every day, but of course he will still have days for Xbox every now and then.
He’s actually been really
happy recently, which is awesome to see. What else is awesome is that Team
Orange has surpassed our goal! All of the supporters, whether donators or
otherwise, are incredible. The six founders of Team Orange all thank you from
the bottom of our hearts. Each day we are more and more astounded and humbled
by all of the support we have gotten from our family, friends, and surrounding
communities. There will never be enough words to thank you for all you have
done on Mason’s journey down this orange brick road. We couldn’t have asked for
a better group of people to have around us. You are all the sun on the days that seem a little darker; you're the people who make it brighter.
No matter how hard Mason
coughs, I’ll keep trying to make him laugh. No matter how many bad days
there are, we will always make sure there are three times as many good days. No
matter what, we know that Mason is so strong, and everything is going to turn
out alright. Sunny days are in his (and our) future.