Community Corner

Elijah's Garden Grows as Symbol of Hope, Generosity

When three-year-old Elijah Herman was diagnosed with leukemia last year, Culver City organizations sprang into action to help the family. His backyard garden has become a safe haven for the smiling boy during the toughest year of his young life.

Holding his arms out like a little bird in flight, Elijah Herman ran around the redwood tree in the backyard that has been turned into his own personal wonderland.  “Let me show you a trick!” he said. Zipping to and fro, he pointed out where worms live—in the dirt, of course—jumped on his tricycle for a quick ride, and paused to pose for the camera.  At just three years old, his energy level and superhero imitations would seem typical if not for what has been the toughest eight months of his life—Elijah has leukemia, diagnosed in just December of last year.

The backyard garden where he runs with happiness has become his personal refuge, the living evidence of an act of generosity on the part of the Culver City Friends of the YMCA.  Since Elijah is essentially on “house arrest” said his father Brad—as his social life has been drastically altered to protect him from the germs that would ravage his weakened immune system—the garden has been a perfect solution for fun playtime in a safe environment.

“You can’t take your kid to the grocery store, you can’t take your kid anywhere because you can’t guarantee that there won’t be germs,” Brad said. “Last time he got sick he stayed in the hospital for 14 days.

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"It’s not that we are saying that places are unclean, but we have no way of sanitizing the entire place.” Mom Karin added that Elijah couldn’t even go to his best friend’s birthday party because of the same concern.

Before his diagnosis, Elijah was in preschool at Temple Akiba and taking swim classes at the Culver-Palms YMCA, not to mention engaging in the simplicity of life as a three-year-old with playdates and best friends. However, around Thanksgiving of last year, Elijah seemed pale and his appetite was not as vigorous as it normally was, Karin said. Thinking it may have been anemia, she and Brad set up a doctor’s appointment to check.

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Once he received several blood tests in the emergency room, the doctors came back to Brad and Karin and informed them that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It was Dec. 1, the day that changed everything.

The family—and the community—immediately sprang into action. Temple Akiba members brought over food and gifts for the kids. Elijah immediately entered chemotherapy and treatments at Cedar Sinai. Brad’s coworkers at Dreamworks Animation volunteered to give him their sick days so he could stay with his son in the hospital. And through a simple phone call from Karin informing the YMCA that Elijah wouldn’t be returning to swim class, Friends of the YMCA member Judy Potik heard about Elijah’s diagnosis, and petitioned the Friends to give a special gift to Elijah—a garden that carries his name. 

“I went over there a couple of times, and I saw that the backyard wasn’t conducive for a child to play,” said Potik, who owns a company that does design installation and maintenance of container, small space and patio gardening.  With a team of 15 Friends, the crew planted new flowers, installed a fountain, mounted a sign dubbing the space “Elijah’s Garden,” and utilized old pots for new plants. They completed their one-day garden project July 16.

Though Elijah is running, jumping, smiling, and generously giving out gummy snacks to parents and guests alike, the last eight months have been characterized by tough treatments, with the first 45 days in the hospital.  According to his parents, he’s been on 10 different drugs, with side effects that have affected his ability to walk and stand, and even making the normally fearless child afraid of falling into the water near a favorite bike trail. The steroids that he was on for 30 days made him gain several pounds, not to mention creating added hunger, mood swings and vocal changes. Elijah has also had several spinal taps, and proudly sports a “button” in his chest, which is a port for the doctor to inject the chemotherapy drugs.

“He has more strength and perseverance than anyone I know,” Brad said.

Karin and Brad have thick photo albums to chronicle his journey, with Elijah playing with kid sister Aliyah in some, proudly riding his tricycle in others, and smiling in all of them, even if he was posing from a hospital bed. In several photos, Brad and Elijah wore matching superhero shirts, a small token of preparation courtesy of Karin, who wanted to help her son get mentally ready for his treatments.

Elijah has a difficult road ahead of him—including daily oral chemotherapy, a steroid pulse once a month and injected chemotherapy once a month, with his parents figuring out how to continue his education and trying to live life as a normal kid in the midst of all of it. But as for his parents and family, who have set up a Facebook page to document his journey, they are taking the victories one day at a time, are grateful for the help they have received, and are helping Elijah to enjoy every day.

Or, according to an Aug. 1 entry from his page “I’m Helping Heal Elijah,” his parents say it best: “Today was our 200th day out of the hospital.  It has been an amazing journey so far and we hope that those numbers grow far past what we can count. We never would have chosen this path for our life, but through this we have seen the best in humanity. Your love and support has been a great gift to us that we can never repay.”

To see more pictures of Elijah's Garden, click here.

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