‘Happy place’ is everything Rourke wanted
By DEB BENTLY
Staff Writer
“The bed. And the ‘fridge.”
Rourke Wacholz, 6, has little patience with questions this morning of Sunday, June 25. He has returned home to see the makeover his room has been receiving the past couple of days. But he is able to identify two favorites.
In addition to the lofted bed–the request he was most excited about–he has returned home to find new carpeting, freshly painted walls, a toy chest filled with dinosaurs, a special circular ceiling light with a small ceiling fan inside it, and even a karaoke machine and a small refrigerator that can hold up to four child-sized beverages.
All four members of the Wacholz family–Rourke, his younger brother Arlo, 4, and parents Chelsey and Mike–have spent the last two days elsewhere, asked to return no sooner than 11:30 today.
“We’ve been counting the minutes,” admits Chelsey. “We were up at 6:30. Every little while came the question: ‘How long until…’”
Aside from knowing what Rourke had requested, no one in the family had any idea what they would find when they returned.
In their absence, volunteers and workers from My Happy Place of Mason City, Iowa, were making Rourke’s dreams come true in very practical ways, installing the various new features and adding any special touches they could think of.
In addition to the work being done, for the most part by volunteers, the new features were funded by anonymous local donations solicited through the My Happy Place website. “Our family would like to thank all who donated. We don’t have a list of contributors, but please know we appreciate all of your support throughout this journey!”
Alongside the many upgrades to the room itself, Rourke and Arlo find helmets. When they ask what they’re for, they are brought out to the main part of the house to find the answer: a child-size “Jeep” vehicle.
“When I saw that,” Rourke says, “I fell on my face.” He didn’t stay there long however: within moments he and Arlo were testing out all the buttons, driving the vehicle forward and back the few feet available to them inside the house.
Bit by bit, the reveal winds down: Designer, volunteer, and My Happy Place board member Katie Klemesrud lets everyone know she must get back to Mason City for a baseball game. Organization executive director Lisa Tan finishes work on a video and packs up.
There comes some time for quiet conversation in which Chelsey mentions that Rourke began his sixth cycle of chemo in his Maintenance Phase on June 13. She says the different chemo variations put Rourke somewhat out of sorts, and expresses a hope that the beautiful new bedroom will be of help.
Now in the sixth phase of treatment for his leukemia, Rourke has been through a great deal over the past two years. NRHEG kindergarten teacher Bethany Tennis recalls: “Rourke was very perceptive when explaining to his classmates why his "illness" was different from when they had to stay home sick. He always was so enthusiastic when coming back to school. Rourke found a way to highlight the uniqueness of his situation even when it seemed somber. Rourke would sometimes come back to school and tell me what he had done at the clinic or hospital. While he would tell me he would still have a smile and a cheerful tone in his voice. I called it his eye smile, because of the mask he wore a majority of the time at school. The adversity he encountered was unimaginable for anyone- let alone a Kindergartener, yet Rourke faced all of it head first.”