It’s a date! One Midlothian High School junior knew exactly who she wanted to ask to prom — and it wasn’t the Chesterfield County, Virginia, school’s quarterback. Nine-year-old Beckett Wyatt has been battling stage IV Ewing sarcoma since last June, and Kaelyn Brakefield wanted to be sure he got a chance to go to prom.
“I wanted to take Beckett because what if he never gets to?” the teen told WRIC news. “I want him to be able to do the things I got to do.”
She knew about Wyatt’s cancer story because he’s a classmate of her younger sister’s. “I’ve seen him run around and dance with kids he’s never met before,” said Brakefield. “I can just imagine how much fun he will have with the older kids.”
She even treated Wyatt to a Hamilton-themed promposal, creating a sign reading, “There’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait … Beckett, will you be my PROM DATE?” Needless to say, he said yes.
“It’s special to see him getting to do those things,” his mom, Kymmie Wyatt, said. “But also, no matter what comes, I’ll have those memories with him.”
While Brakefield teared up talking about Wyatt’s brave battle with WRIC, the boy was full of mischief. When asked what he plans to do at the dance, he quipped, “There’s the fruit punch bowl I could shove her face in!” The prom is April 22.
According to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Ewing sarcoma is the second most common type of bone cancer in children, but it is very rare. Only 200 children are found to have the disease each year in the U.S. For children diagnosed after the disease has spread, the survival rate is less than 30 percent.
Wyatt’s mom says her son is a fighter: “He truly believes that he’s got this, and if anyone can beat this, it’s him.”
