My husband has a pretty cool job. There have been moments in his Gabba journey that have been so crazy and exciting. Most of the time I am not there for these crazy exciting moments. It's normally Scott telling me how crazy it was meeting the President was or how cool and the Flaming lips are. And me bitterly thinking, Yes, I bet they were pretty cool.
But I actually got to be there for what Scott said was by far the best Gabba experience he has had. And that was meeting Mason, sorry Mr. President.
Mason was visiting our set through the Make a wish foundation. Out of all the wishes he could have had he wished to come and meet everyone here in Gabba land.
Mason has a very rare form of muscular dystrophy called X-linked Myotubular Myopathy. He has had to live the last 10 years of his life away from children and during flu season he has been secluded from the world all together. I have had a small taste of this over the past year and it is not an easy life. And I am saying this after only one year.
You could just see how excited Mason was to be around Lance and the characters. He would not take his eyes off of them.
I asked His mom, Staceyanne what his favorite part of the day was and she said it was when DJ lance came into the greenroom to visit him, " very few people actually interact with or touch Mason, most likely out of not knowing what to do. Everyone at Gabba was so wonderful about that, and I think the fact that DJ Lance kept holding his hand, letting him take off his glasses and hugging him made him feel very special."
I can say I feel the same way about Lance. He makes everyone feel that way. I can never get a good picture of Lance with my kids because he is always playing with them making them smile.
I hope you don't mind but I wanted you guys to read part of the letter Mason's mom wrote me.
This was such a surreal opportunity for all of us. Mason is completely isolated from the world- no friends, no social interaction. Even though we take him all over the place, we have to be so careful of his exposure to people- and then there's still that issue of people not knowing what to say or how to act, so they don't really try w/ him. Most people would never pick up on the little mannerisms of how Mason is feeling, but I can tell you that the welcome that he felt, the acceptance- he totally enjoyed being part of something, of being special in a good way, not just in that "you're different" way. I know we keep saying this, but his episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba are his entire world- they fill up every waking moment of his day. And his little plastic characters, they are his friends, his security. His whole life, all his happiness comes from our love, and from the joy he gets from all the aspects of the show, especially the music- we are able to know exactly what he is feeling by what song he's singing. That's absolutely golden to us!!! From the moment we realized our time w/ him was going to be short, we've done everything we could to give him a fun life- trips, toys, adventures, etc. But what you guys did for our little boy, for our family- it was something that meant more to us than anything money could buy...
Staceyanne, I feel like we should be thanking you. This was a day WE will never forget.
If you like to read more about Mason and his family click right HERE.