Community Corner

Seriously Ill 8-Year-Old Records Album So Voice Will Live Forever

Asma has a life-limiting illness and a love for music. Nurses helped her make an album to give her family "her voice in something forever."

BAYSIDE, QUEENS -- For one day, all eyes were on Asma.

Cameras flashed and the room cheered as the 8-year-old shyly padded across the red carpet rolled out just for her inside St. Mary's Hospital for Children.

Asma has lived at the Bayside children's hospital with a life-limiting illness since she was just 3 years old. At her family's request, the hospital asked her last name and diagnosis not be published.

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But today wasn't about Asma's illness. Today would be a celebration of the little girl's life, legacy and a love for music that has been around longer than the years she's lived in the hospital.

Dressed in a sparkly pink princess dress and armed with her favorite dancing princess doll, Asma walked past homemade posters of encouragement bearing her name to a makeshift stage set up in the hospital's lobby. The hospital that has been home for more than half her life would today be her concert hall.

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Asma's nurses and musical therapist had spent the last several months helping the little girl record a 19-track album of her favorite songs, each one hand-picked and sung by her. On Thursday, they crowded the hospital lobby – some even coming in on their day off – to celebrate the final product at an album release party with her friends and loved ones.

"It was a legacy-building process, so that if she does eventually pass away within a year or a couple years – we don’t know – the staff and her family will have her voice in something forever," said Melissa Sandoval, the hospital's music therapist.

Sandoval said her role at St. Mary's is to provide the best quality of life for every child at the hospital, but Asma wasn't just any patient.

After years of wrapping the hospital's nurses and doctors around her tiny fingers, Asma is now jokingly referred to as the mayor of St. Mary's, she said. Sandoval, who's worked with her for three years, wanted to find a way to capture the spunky 8-year-old's essence.

"She’s very sassy, and she very much loves to be the highlight of the world," Sandoval laughed. "She loves music so much, so for me as a music therapist, I needed to find a way to capture her voice."

Asma also loves to be the boss, so making the girl executive producer of her own album seemed the perfect project.

"She chose every song and she chose every staff member that's in each song with her," Sandoval said. "It just kind of became her presence in an album."

The album release party, from the guest list to the activities, was also the little girl's doing.

"She planned the whole party," Sandoval said. "She was shy today, but she had so much planning in this whole thing."

Copies of the final product, titled "Our Flower Tree," were handed out to guests at the release party as Asma took the stage to perform one of her favorites, "Itsy Bitsy Spider," with help from one of her beloved nurses.

Claire Mahon, the recreational therapist who organized the girl's dream party, looked on. It had been important to her that this soiree be as glamorous as possible, for Asma.

"We were planning it for awhile, so to see it all come together is just amazing," she said.

The party was personal for the nurse, who has known Asma since 2014 when she was a student at the hospital.

"She's like a 16-year-old trapped in an 8-year-old's body," Mahon joked. "She keeps everyone on their toes."

But despite her star presence, Asma was camera shy, autographing only a few CDs before promising to autograph more tomorrow.

When asked what she thought about the release party put on for her, the pink feather holding Asma's hair in a perfect princess bun swayed as she shook her head.

"I'm busy dancing with my doll," she said shyly before wandering off to enjoy her party.

(Lead photos by Danielle Woodward/Patch)


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