A ‘Makeover’ and more
Published 12:01 am Saturday, October 8, 2011
The story begins with a moment of sudden and horrific tragedy.
Two sisters, ages 9 and 5, walking to school on a wet, foggy morning in Madison, Ga. The younger sister crossing a street, not seeing the oncoming truck. The older sister trying desperately to pull her back before jumping to push
the younger girl out of the way.
And then the sickening thud of the vehicle colliding with a child’s body.
Anaiah Rucker, now 10, was able to save her sister that morning last February, but her heroism came at a cost. The truck’s impact left her with multiple broken bones and other injuries, including a left leg damaged so severely that it had to be amputated above the knee.
It was a devastating outcome, and in the grieving family’s search for solace it was hard to find much beyond a profound relief that Anaiah was still alive. That much, at least, was a blessing.
Yet unbeknownst to Anaiah and her family, other blessings were still to come. Sometimes in the aftermath of heartbreak there are instances of extraordinary compassion and remarkable generosity.
And so it was for Anaiah.
The producers of the television program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” built a new home for Anaiah and her family, and it was constructed to accommodate her disability. And then, having learned of Anaiah’s love of basketball, they arranged for her to meet Katie Holloway of Lake Stevens, also an amputee, who overcame her own disability to become a standout basketball player at Lake Stevens High School and California State University, Northridge.
Just like that, a true friendship was born.
That friendship can be seen Sunday night when the episode airs on national TV. Be forewarned. You might want to have some tissues handy, because the program “will be a tear-jerker,” Holloway said.
The 25-year-old Holloway initially met Anaiah during an expenses-paid summer vacation for the girl and her family to Disney World near Orlando, Fla. (As an added surprise, basketball star Dwight Howard of the NBA’s Orlando Magic also showed up.)
Holloway later traveled to Madison to help the building crew with some final projects, and she was there the day the family saw their new home for the first time.
At the moment of unveiling, she said, “you immediately get goose bumps and chills. And then you get a warm feeling inside. You feel that you’re part of something that’s bigger than yourself.”
Anaiah and her family, which includes mother Andrea Taylor, younger sister Camry Harden and grandmother Angeline Davis, “were completely overwhelmed with joy,” Holloway said.
Seeing their new home for the first time “was just breathtaking,” Taylor said. “To realize that me and the kids had a home that we could call our own, and that everything is accessible for Anaiah, it just brought me to tears.”
“And even though we’ve been here two months now, it still seems unreal.”
The irony, she added, is that she had long been “a big fan” of the TV program.
“I’d always wanted to enter, but I thought this could never, ever happen to me.”
And it happened, she said, because the show’s producers “were all so moved by the courage Anaiah had to save her little sister.”
As much as the family is delighting in their new home, Anaiah is also thrilled to have a new friend in Holloway.
“When she met Katie for the first time, they instantly hit it off,” Taylor said. “Katie was the right person to talk to her about what she’s going through. And now she loves Katie. They’re constantly Facebooking with each other. And Katie is always calling to see if Anaiah’s OK and how she’s doing in school.”
In the weeks after the accident and the subsequent amputation, “it was kind of hard for Anaiah to grasp,” her mother said. “But once she realized that she’d saved her sister, that her sister’s life really could’ve ended, I believe that pulled her through. Now her spirits are high. She’s moving forward with a prosthetic and she’s so determined. She doesn’t believe, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t do that.’ She believes she can.
“And whenever Anaiah has any kind of question, she knows she can call Katie.”
Holloway, meanwhile, says the experience “was not so much about the house for me, it’s about what happens after. It’s about what I could do to help (Anaiah) with her recovery. Because when I was with her (over the summer), she was still not walking on her walker with her prosthetic. So she still had a ways to go.
“But I wanted to portray the message that if she wants to push through with basketball someday, she could. That’s the message I wanted to send, that she can do anything she wants. And I also wanted to be a part of her life and to help her along her way.”
And the funny thing is, Holloway said, that “by being a part of her life, I felt I was opening a new chapter in mine. I was being a mentor and a friend to someone so she can lean on me with her future goals.
“I wanted to find out what I could do to help somebody like this,” she said, “and it’s kind of a big feeling.”
On TV
“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” with an appearance by Katie Holloway of Lake Stevens, airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on KOMO-TV (Channel 4).
Katie Holloway’s story
If anyone understands the hardships and anguishes of being an amputee, it’s Katie Holloway.
Born with fibular hemimelia, which is the absence of a fibula (the smaller of two bones in the lower leg), she underwent the amputation of her right ankle and foot as a small child. The surgery allowed her to wear a prosthetic instead of an awkward leg brace and gave her the chance for a more complete and normal life, including several years as a basketball standout at Lake Stevens High School (class of 2004) and California State University, Northridge.
In 2008, Holloway won a silver medal as a member of the U.S. sitting volleyball team at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. She will again represent the U.S. at the 2012 Paralympics in August and September in London.
