Out of loss, a place of hope

Vancouver, Wash. Alexi Ann Hendricks would have been celebrating her third birthday Friday.

Instead, her family will dedicate a playground in Alexi's memory on Saturday at the same place they held her memorial service last summer.

Born with global developmental delay, the daughter of Jeff Hendricks and Karen Goulding-Hendricks faced a lot of challenges.

An early-education program was a big part of Alexi's brief life, and the playground will help other kids make some of the same gains she made before her death on July 2, 2005.

The local PRIDE (Parents Receiving Intensive Development Education) program serves children up to 3 years old with developmental disabilities.

"PRIDE did so much for Alexi, and this is a way to give back," Jeff Hendricks said. "It's her legacy."

"Every time we took Alexi to a doctor, the news was worse," Karen Goulding-Hendricks said. "When we came to this place, the focus was on seeing what she could do. The more they worked with her vision, the better she saw."

As Alexi's doctors were discussing wheelchairs, the PRIDE therapists were helping the little girl learn how to walk in a special walker. And one memorable day, Alexi showed that she could crawl; she suffered a seizure later that day.

When they took Alexi to Portland's Doernbecher Children's Hospital, "she had rug burns on her knees from crawling," Goulding-Hendricks said. "I thought, 'They'll think we're awful parents,' which is a ridiculous thing."

Alexi died of pneumonia nine days later. Her family donated Alexi's corneas and a heart valve, and then found another way to honor her memory.

With PRIDE gearing up for its playground project, the Camas family decided to join the effort as a way to thank the program for its role in Alexi's life.

Hendricks became project manager and enlisted many of the people he works with at the local Hewlett-Packard operation.

The family also helped the fund-raising project, which has pulled in more than $150,000.

More than 230 individuals including about 100 from H-P have volunteered to help in the project, contributing more than 2,200 hours of work. More than 20 local businesses have contributed material or services worth about $40,000.

It was an industrial-strength campaign for a place where kids can slide, swing and play in the sand. However, it is play with a purpose, said Claire Welander, director of the early intervention program.

"They learn to be independent, and get to practice the skills they've been working on in a classroom," she said. "It keeps building their brain, and the brain becomes more coordinated."

The benefits of the playground go beyond physical improvement, Welander added.

"The speech therapist is using the playground for expanding vocabulary, giving the children target words," Welander said. "Even in using a swing: They have to request 'More swing,' or 'I want swing.' "

The program serves up to 150 children at any given time, with a range of issues.

"Many have physical delays due to brain injury or trauma," Welander said. "When there is an injury to the brain, there also is a speech delay, and that creates a cognitive delay which leads to a social delay.

"Or, it could be a birth defect or a syndrome or autism. And in many cases, they simply do not know why a child is delayed."

As children make progress in the program, their parents benefit as well, Goulding-Hendricks said. After Alexi was born, Karen and Jeff were trying to measure her development by their experiences with her older brother, Jordan, who turns 7 next month.

There came a time, Jeff said, when they realized, "She's not doing what our son did."

They learned to rely on the experiences of other PRIDE parents.

"You meet people with older children, learn what services are out there, where to go for this or that," Alexi's mother said. "It's sad to realize that you are not alone, because that means there are so many disabled children. But it's comforting to go to a place where nobody is staring at you. You're all there because of a child who is disabled."

Even though their daughter no longer needs those services, the Hendricks family is still coming back to the center.

"This is a family that looked into the future and saw a place where Alexi was happy," Welander said. "They knew that what was good for Alexi was something that all children could appreciate. It takes a big heart to take a loss and look forward and turn it into a gift."

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