BOUNTIFUL, UTAH (ABC 4 News) -A five-year-old bountiful girl cannot see, speak, or move, but she is moving absolute strangers to perform acts of kindness this holiday season.
It was hard. It was really hard." Says Nikki Williams. Nikki and Callahan Williams say their daughter Eliza was just like any other little girl for the first two years of her life. Callahan says "She grew up walking and was great with her words, loved animals." But then at age two;” She stopped progressing. She stopped walking, reverted to crawling."
Eliza was diagnosed with a rare disease that causes degeneration of white matter in the brain. Within two months she could no longer move, see, and speak. It was Christmas 2007.
Callahan Williams says that first Christmas was devastating.” It’s hard to have a child trapped in a body that can't necessarily play or utilize all of those toys on Christmas morning."
So the Williams decided they needed to re-think Christmas. Nikki says "We kind of needed to redefine what a gift was."
And while Eliza’s body had failed her, they knew her mind and spirit had not. “Mentally, I think her mind still wants do all of those things and be five years old.” Her father says.
Friends and family called to ask what they could get the little girl for Christmas, and that’s when a new Christmas tradition began at the Williams house. The gifts Eliza now gets are acts of service given to others.
Gifts of service are detailed in letters to Eliza. They are placed under her tree to be read on Christmas morning. They range from small deeds of kindness, from small friends... for example, "Dear Eliza, I made my brother's bed and I folded socks for my mom" and, " I will shovel someone's driveway in the neighborhood." To larger gifts of service that lift the spirit and educate the mind.
"Each week through out the year I am going to send a card to someone." "What I give you this Christmas is a scholarship in your name."
And what started out as a small Christmas tradition for family and friends has grown. A few letters has become a hundred or more a year. "She has touched people's lives that she has never met that have never met her."
Her parents say they are certain when Eliza hears her special gifts, she is also touched. "She gets it, and she's only five and a half but she understands that people have done nice things for other people and it seems to make her happy."
