A nurse takes us aside and says that this 7-year-old boy had just lost his sight. He is incredibly depressed. "Could you try to cheer him up?" About 4 doctors and 6 nurses are looking on, wondering what will happen. We approach his bed. He is on his side, curled up in a ball, with his eyes open. I say in my clown voice, "I am a clown. Can I play my harmonica for you?" "No," he very softly says. "Can we sing a song for you?" "No." I ask, "What is your favorite food?" "Chocolate pudding" he says. "Oh, would you like a story about chocolate pudding?" "Yes." So Liz and I make up a dumb story about chocolate pudding and taking a bath in it with all of his friends. Liz and I just trade off silliness about his favorite food and he smiles! His parents and relatives are laughing and laughing. I still see his sweet little face!


We have seen a little boy, Benjamin, for years. He is 10 years old. He can’t move his hands, and is either in bed or in a reclining wheelchair. He beams every time he sees our clowns. His one foot and toes act as his hand. He makes magic tricks work, by tapping our tricks with his foot.

Today we visit him. I play a silent clown. My partner, Poppy, says, “Bloopers has lost her voice.” And we look in my pockets, behind the nurse’s counter, everywhere for my voice.‘Benjamin says, “I will say the magic word.” And he does and my voice returns. He takes cards we give him with his toes. Benjamin never wants us to leave when we visit and always says, “One more magic trick?”

We visit all the children on the floors and then talk about our visits in the lobby when we are finished seeing all of the children. I am about to leave the hospital. I look through my clown bag and realize I have left my magic box up on the floor where Benjamin lives. So I take the elevator to his floor.

Benjamin is eating lunch and beams when he sees me. I pretend I have lost my voice again. He laughs and laughs. He says the magic word; my voice returns. I see my magic box on the counter. I smile at him and wave a huge wave. As I dash down the hall leaving, he yells, “I love you!” How good does life really get? Not better than this!

A nurse takes us aside and says, "I really trust you. You are so wonderful. I must tell you this. This young man tried to kill himself. I don't know that he will want clowns, but try anyway." We gently approach the bed asking permission to come into his space. He smiles. Within about 10 seconds he is laughing and laughing. His mom is by his bed and she is smiling, too . We sing, do poetry, and other silly clown antics. After about 15 minutes, we leave and his mom looks at us and says softly, "Thank you for getting him to smile." This mom's gift to me is worth a million dollars!


A 15-year-old young woman looks at us with HUGE skepticism as she gives us permission to enter her room. "She thinks clowns are weird," her mom says. The girl asks, "Are you weird?" I squeak, "Are we weird? We are hospital clowns. Would you like a clown manicure?" I ask and put a sticker on my own stubby nail to calm her fears of having anything weird visit her. She laughs and laughs and says, "Oh YES. I would LOVE a clown
manicure." She is SO excited. Then we song (pretty badly) and she beamed with delight! Her mom asks if we are ministry clowns and where we got our training. I couldn't really answer since I did’t want to break the spell of her daughter being in clown world. Her daughter says, "MOM, don't ask questions." Yes, she has truly entered clown land and loves it!


I poke my head around the corner of the door and see the sad, serious face of a 16-year-old man. He sees me. I oohhed and ahhhed- "You look like a movie star." And he DOES! A huge grin spreads from ear to ear on his face. "Would you like a clown visit?" A huge nod- yes. We do dumb magic. He gives us the thumbs up. We ask if we wants us to sing him a song. Thumbs up. We bow. He gives us two thumbs up. He laughs and seems SO happy. And then, I realize, he does not speak. We play and play, and as we leave his room, the face that had been sad when we first entered is sparkling with joy .


A baby is crying and crying in the PICU. "Oh, calm him down," the nurse begs us. A little 6-month-old is swinging in the swing-o-matic crying and crying. I pull up a chair so I can be on his level, take out my bunny ballerina, put my harmonica in my mouth and play very softly as my puppet very, very slowly dances. The baby stops crying and looks hypnotized and entranced.


Joyce Friedman sent this wonderful Magical Moment:

A teenage girl has a breathing tube which makes it difficult for her to speak. She is on precautions so we gown up. Meanwhile, the physical therapist is desperately trying to get her to move her legs over to the side of the bed and to sit up. The girl is very stubborn and refuses. We begin by singing a song with her name in it. Then, we move on to noses. I press Charlie's nose several times while he sticks out his tongue. Then, when he presses my nose, I blurt out names of food like pizza, French fries, hamburger. A little more of a smile and eye contact. We then ask her what her favorite food is - hot dogs - and we begin to sing numerous songs and substitute 'hot dog' for many of the words. 'Somewhere over the 'hot dog', ' Take me out to the 'hot dog', 'Puff the magic hot dog'. She is laughing, pointing at our ridiculousness, covering her face with dismay at our stupidity. We begin singing about sitting up and getting her 'hot dog' legs over the bed. Our interaction is so lively that by the time we leave, she is doing exactly what the nurse needs her to do. How incredible that is!


We ask a pretty teenage girl her favorite movie star. "Patrick Swayze," she says with a huge grin. I say, Oh, "I love the movie Dirty Dancing!" and her smile grows larger and larger. Then we re-enact the moment where Jennifer Grey jumps off the stage into Patrick's arms at the end of the movie and they dance together. Of course, we do it as clowns and she is laughing hysterically. And to be honest, so are we!


I have a magical moment with a little girl at the Dave Retik Father's Day Fun Run, named for a 33-year-old father who died aboard American Airlines flight 11 on September 11, 2001. Dave's wife Susan is pregnant with their third child, and now has Ben, age 5, Molly, age 3 and Dina, 18 months. I have just been clowning for 3 hours at the Fun Run with about 150 kids, lots of families, and no tears - at least not because of the clown!!


My moment was with a child of another September 11th family. I am in a large group of kids, squatting very low, just talking and playing quietly and gently. A girl about five or six years old is standing but holds on to her mother. She looks very sad. She keeps watching me with the other children. I smile at her but she does not smile back. After the other children move on, I offer her a sticker. She comes over to look. She takes a long time to decide.

It is a quiet moment, just the two of us within this big, loud event. We are talking - I don't remember about what, just silly stuff. Before she goes back to her Mom, I ask her if she saw the race. She says, "I was sad because we're here because I don't have my Daddy any more, but I feel happy now. Bye!"


This precious little boy backing away down the hall, step by step, clutching his stand of tubes and devices, moving through time, in suspended motion, step by step, every step as a drum beat; using his free hand to blow me kisses, one by one, one by one.


Clowning with a 10 year old boy in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

He is lying in bed, hooked up to many monitors, and very frail looking, when 3 clowns come to his bedside. He pulls himself up, with much effort, to see and interact with the clowns. I start to juggle- not very well. He asks for the balls to try. He is able to juggle. The smile that comes over his face lights up the room. The boy doesn’t want us to leave. It is an incredibly touching moment. A very sick boy is able to act like a boy in an environment that doesn't lend itself to play.


We go into a room and the girl looks too old to be entertained by a bunch of silly clowns. Her head is covered in a black scarf and she is about 16 years old. Her eyes absolutely light up when we enter and she seems to perk up. We ask if we could dance for her and sing and she said, "No". She is Muslim from the United Arab Emirates and it is against her religion to listen to music. So one of the clowns asks if we could do a silent dance for her. She agrees and then watches us, entranced by our costumes, makeup, glittery sparkles and funny movements We are saying good-bye and almost out of the room when she says, "I will never, ever forget you" in such a heartfelt way that I feel my throat closed up and have to bite my lip not to cry, or run back and give her a hug. She seems so exotic and isolated when we first walked into the room and when we leave, I feel we had left something very special with her.


At MGH we meet a small, excited 4 year old girl in the hallway. She is dragging her IV with one hand and her mom with the other. "She wants clowns" her mom tells us. When we had visited her earlier that day, she was open to us but shy. The clowns gather around her and give her the remote control. She points it first at one of us and then another, going around the circle making each of us jump, swing our arms and move in different ways. Well, by the end, her face lights up and she is laughing so hard that she is bent over. Her mom has a big smile and she simply says, "This is the best medicine she's had all week."

We have the little girl playing with us clowns as marionettes. She pulls our strings. I really feel like we reach her and empower her to join our world, and help her forget her illness, forget where she is!


One girl at Franciscan's just laughs and laughs, especially when we clowns try to dance ballet. She has a picture of herself as a ballerina on the door.



* The names and personal attributes of the people described in these Magical Moments have been changed so as to prevent identification and protect confidentiality.


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