Elizabeth Larson ushered the next customer to her nails table at the Gifted Hands Hair Salon one afternoon last week.
You can pick, she said, motioning to a tray full of multicolored polishes. And away she went.
“You're good at this,” noted Harrington, who'd come out from Missoula with sister Molly to have her nails done.
“Yeah,” replied Elizabeth, intently painting and swabbing.
It was Elizabeth's fourth day on the job, and a busy one. Her cousins, also named Megan and Molly, came in to have their nails polished. So did Kristin Wright, who heard about Elizabeth's service at the Women's Club in Missoula, and Maureen Murphy, who got the word from her daughter.
Elizabeth's services included the application of tiny thumbnail decals of flowers or hearts, which everyone seemed to go for.
Before she let Harrington go, Elizabeth made sure she had a business card:
“Elizabeth Larson, Manager,” it read. “Specializing in Customer Care.”
She accepted the Harrington sisters' donation and made her way to the front desk of the salon. She pulled out a small purse, stuffed the bills inside, and checked her appointment book.
“She told me, ‘When I grow up I'm going to own my own hair salon,' ” said Jennifer Warner, who opened Gifted Hands in August.
Warner's voice cracks just a touch when she speaks of such things. She lives two doors down from the Larsons in Frenchtown. Two Saturdays ago, Warner invited a few neighbors and their daughters down to the shop to have their nails done.
Elizabeth, who's 8 years old, accompanied her mom and watched as Shirley got a pedicure.
What do you want to do when you grow up? Warner asked Elizabeth.
I want to do this, the girl replied.
How would you like to come down and work with me? asked Warner.
Her daughter could never understand why she couldn't go to work like grown-ups, Shirley Larson said.
“I'd tell her because, honey, you're too little. So when Jennifer offered her a job, her eyes lit up. It was amazing.”
So is what has ensued.
When Elizabeth arrived for work on Monday, she found her own nails table next to Warner's, courtesy of Warner. Tiffany Hausknecht, the salon's nails specialist, had collected a selection of her own polishes for Elizabeth to use.
Warner already had the business cards that proclaimed Elizabeth as manager on hand, provided by her printer, Gayle Klawitter, at no charge.
“She just loves them,” Warner said. “Isn't it funny? You look at life and the simplest things make her day.”
Warner had advised her sister, Lani Bolendaugh, that Elizabeth was open for business. Lani and her daughter Lilo were her first clients.
When Elizabeth Larson was 3 years old, she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a form of childhood cancer that starts in immature nerve cells. Just before she turned 4, she underwent her first treatment at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital in Spokane.
“Neuroblastoma is usually a solid tumor in one spot, but it can split up and start going to different parts of your body and depositing its cells,” Shirley said. “And then they're all over the place. It's a very fast-growing cancer, so it more or less moves itself into the bones and settles there.
Doctors told Shirley and her husband Bob the cancer then spreads “just like wildfire,” Shirley said. “There's no stopping it.”
That's what happened inside Elizabeth, starting last spring. She walks gingerly and her eyesight and hearing are deteriorating. She's in such constant pain that she never even noticed when she had a serious ear infection, her mother said.
Elizabeth has endured regular cancer treatments for more than half her young life, and her body has responded well. Now she's subject to platelet and blood cell transfusions when her blood counts drop. She receives 17 doses of seven different drugs every day. She is filled with steroids, chemotherapy, tumor shrinkers and painkillers.
Recently, doctors have had her on a medication designed to slow the cancer cells from eating away at the bones they've invaded. But there's nothing man can do that will stop them altogether.
Elizabeth had to drop out of second grade when she became seriously ill in late September. Her parents rushed her to Spokane a day before her latest round of chemotherapy was scheduled. The physician at Children's Hospital couldn't couch the news.
“The doctor told us she would give her four to six weeks,” Shirley said.
The sixth week passed last Wednesday.
That was the day of the bake sale at Warner's salon, and Elizabeth's third day on the job. While she happily painted nails, a constant stream of admirers kept the place buzzing. They were cousins, aunts and uncles, friends, teachers and the Frenchtown bus drivers. They came from down the street and, thanks to a grapevine that knows no end, from Missoula, where most of Elizabeth's nail clients are from.
Warner's son, 11-year-old Cody, let Elizabeth paint his nails hot pink - with flower decals on the thumbs. His mom wondered what the kids at school would think. Cody told her they'd all want to come in and have Elizabeth do their nails too.
Frenchtown Drug supplied balloons, and Frenchies across the street sent pizza, pop and cookies. Cheri Taylor from Mary Kay Cosmetics brought makeup for the girls, with sparkles, which were everywhere. What food was left when the bake sale ended was bought by Mykel of the Frenchtown Club, after some negotiating with Elizabeth.
The bake sale started at 1 p.m. By 1:30, Shirley had to run home to make more brownies.
The phone starts ringing at the Gifted Hands salon each morning, but when she picks it up Warner doesn't say “Gifted Hands” any more.
“Elizabeth's answering service,” she'll say.
Warner asks customers to make appointments beforehand and check back to make sure Elizabeth will be there if they drive out from Missoula. This week, for instance, the Larsons will be back in Spokane on Wednesday for more chemo treatments.
Elizabeth would work all day long if she could, but Warner won't let her.
“I had a good talk with her the other night. I told her I worried about her, and I don't want her to have so many (clients) that she gets tired and can't come in the next day,” she said.
Not so many years ago, Megan Harrington played basketball for the Montana Lady Griz. On Friday, the day after she visited with her sister, Elizabeth got a call at home.
Shirley watched as her daughter nodded into the phone. Yes, she said. Yep. I can do that.
When she got off the phone, Elizabeth announced the Lady Griz wanted her to do all their nails before their game Sunday. She'd made a mass appointment, in the locker room at noon, two hours before UM tipped off its season against Wyoming.
“It blows me away,” said Shirley Larson, who first met the Harrington sisters on Thursday. “They have such compassion for a little girl that they go back and tell everybody and say, hey, we need to support her in what she's doing.”
“I think it's crazy,” said Warner. “I mean, I just had her paint my sister's nails (last Monday) just so she'd have something to do. I didn't realize, honestly, it would become this big and so many people cared.”
Elizabeth will keep showing up for her job as long as she's able. It would be impossible to keep her away, her mom said.
A happy-go-lucky girl at home and around people she knows, she's on guard when she's with strangers. She's smart and funny and mature far beyond her years, her mother said. And she takes her work seriously.
“She thinks we're going to take her clients, but I don't think that's the case. If anything, she's going to take ours,” said Warner.
The salon owner is grateful to Hausknecht and Lindsay Strozzi-Rausch, the third salonist at the shop, for embracing Elizabeth - often literally.
Only rarely does Elizabeth acknowledge her awful disease.
“She asks me, ‘Why do I have to have this stupid cancer?' Shirley Larson said. “She's only actually referenced it maybe twice. She doesn't really say a whole lot about what's going on right now.”
Elizabeth does wonder about heaven.
“I told her two things happen in life: You're born and you die. It's something you can't change,” Shirley said. “I said, ‘Everybody thinks they're going to live to be old, but that's not always true. Some people die young.' ”
“I want to die when I'm young,” Elizabeth told her mom.
“I said, ‘How young?' ” Shirley asked. “And she goes, ‘When I'm your age.' ”
The Larsons are overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the Frenchtown community, and by the doors Warner has opened for Elizabeth. It could well be prolonging her time with them.
“She gets up in the morning and she's just so thrilled to come to the shop,” said Shirley. “Last night she was in there just singing and talking. She's happy. It makes you feel good to know that the kind of time you're spending at the end is so full of good memories.”
“I just thank Shirley for sharing her with me,” said Warner. “As a mom, if I knew my daughter was dying, I don't know if I would want to share her with the world or the community.”
Elizabeth loves Christmas, and Shirley said she holds out hope they can spend another one with her.
“I'd be just totally heartbroken if we didn't,” she said. “But it's going to be when it's going to be, and we can't change that. You know, if we have to have an early Christmas that's what we'll do.”
“When the day comes, we'll deal with it,” she added. “But right now, as long as that little girl is laughing and smiling, that's all I need for the day.”
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Mom wrote on Nov 17, 2008 4:10 PM:
" This is the story I was telling you about Nancy condit's neighbor, now it's on the front page! "
Emalee Ratliff wrote on Nov 17, 2008 5:41 PM:
" This is the best article I have ever read and I hope she does make it to Christmas "
Debbie wrote on Nov 17, 2008 10:04 PM:
" What a wonderful story, I hope Elizabeth and her family will have a wonderful Christmas. "
Mike wrote on Nov 17, 2008 10:20 PM:
" I think this is amazing! Good thing for people in the community like Warner! Best of luck to the Larson family! You truely have a angel! "
Deb McDonald wrote on Nov 17, 2008 11:15 PM:
" Hey Tiffany....nice article!!! what a wonderful thing to share with this girl. Deb and Bobby McDonald "
Sandy Elrod wrote on Nov 18, 2008 8:52 AM:
" Elizabeth--What an inspiration you are! We are friends of the Thompson's in Denver, CO and want you to know that we are praying for you and your family!
Love, The Elrods "
Love, The Elrods "
Nadine Hausknecht wrote on Nov 17, 2008 3:30 PM: