A simple wave prompted a bond between community members that not even cancer could break.
Every week, the Evenson girls – Grace, Rose and Sophia – wait to hear the garbage truck round the corner. They scramble to climb into position on the perch at the window.
They’ve been waving and smiling at each other from afar for about a year.
Brandon Olsen and Taylor Fritz, the garbage men with Hometown Sanitation, wave back just as vigorously.
“We wait and we look for them,” said Olsen. “For us, it makes our day.”
“It could warm anybody’s heart,” Fritz said. “Seeing those girls wave.”
Around Halloween, the guys dropped of treats for the girls. In return, the girls drew them pictures, which the trash guys treasure.
“And I wrote a little note,” Mom Angie Evenson explained. “Not intending for it to be anything.”
Fritz said he keeps everything close.
“I always keep it on me,” he said. “When I’m having a bad day, I just look at this and read it.”
The note said, ‘We may miss you some Thursdays upcoming. Our three-year-old girl was diagnosed with cancer and has chemo on Thursdays.”
Angie didn’t want Olsen and Fritz to feel badly when the girls wouldn’t be around to wave most weeks.
Doctors diagnosed Rose with stage 4 kidney cancer in September. It spread to her lungs, and treatment required radiation and chemotherapy. And lots of time away from home.
“I have three kids of my own,” Olsen said. “I could never imagine it. Like it tore me apart.”
The next week Olsen and Fritz left the Evenson family a note from their company:
“Our teammates Brandon and Taylor filled us in on the situation and shared the very kind not that you left for them. We were so proud that their gestures gave you a reason to smile recently. Please accept our gift of free garbage service for you through the end of 2017.”
Olsen and Fritz traded in the complimentary service they get as employees to help the Evensons.
“I started crying,” Angie Evenson admitted. “It was only a few weeks out from the diagnosis. Sometimes it’s hard to be positive, but little things like what Hometown did are helping us limp along.
“It’s hard to put words to it and thank you seems so insufficient.”
To read the full story, visit http://www.nbc-2.com/story/34137454/garbage-men-bring-joy-to-child-with-cancer.