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SALT LAKE CITY — After learning a child of a dear friend had a failing heart, Dallas Graham asked himself through tears and heavy emotions an onerous question: "Well, what can you do when a child is facing death; how do you help?"
In a moment of clarity, he knew what to do. He could help the child who faced a life-threatening or -altering disease tell their story. He could listen to them and learn about a youth filled with doctor's appointments, donor lists, surgeries and treatments. In a book he would help them create, they could tell the world what they saw, felt and knew of a world controlled by health restrictions.
"I didn't necessarily find anything else going on in this respect," Graham said. "Children, little darling, amazing people who were either born with certain predispositions or acquired, somehow, a rare disease, I'm very curious about how they see world and how they think."
As a professional graphic designer and photographer, Graham has been telling stories for children using his Jolly Troop, 18 birds he's illustrated using commas and exclamation marks, for the last four years. For this venture, which he calls the Red Fred Project, he is using the Jolly Troop and their personalities to stimulate children's storytelling.
"(It's saying,) 'We all recognize what's happening, but we recognize that you have a very interesting life message, and I want to help you share that,' " he said of the undertaking.
The Red Fred Project is Graham's gift to the families of terminally and critically ill children. Through interviews, photographs and illustrations, he aims to write a book with these children and their parents, which he will then publish for them.
"We know most of these children will not get to grow up to be firefighters or cheerleaders or go to college and eat pizza til 2 a.m. They won't. That's the reality," Graham said. "Most of them probably don't have the time or thought to think, 'Well, maybe someday I'll be an author.' So instead, I say, ‘Let's make you an author right now. Let's do it.' "
He has begun the interview process with the tiny, bespectacled 7-year-old Nathan Glad, who has brittle bone disease — a condition that has caused him to suffer about 200 bone breakages in his lifetime. The boy cannot write, but his brain, Graham said, is "brilliantly fast and funny."
As Graham asks Nathan prompts, like "is (this story) about feeling fear? Love? Is it magical?" Nathan begins telling him and his parents his story. When Nathan's parents gave Graham the draft, they just grinned the entire time. Learning about their child, Graham said, is part of the project's appeal.
"This is not a handout. I've told the parents, ‘No listen. Your kids are really working to get this completed.' We're not just printing out some paper and stapling it and giving it to them. We want to create a really beautiful book that I have the skills to make," Graham said.
Using photos taken under direction of the child, Graham hopes not only to share their story, but also their world view, which can be limited to their homes and doctors offices.
"We're going to see what they see. We're going to see Nathan's view of his front yard. And that's different than the little girl I may find in Hawaii, what she sees," Graham said. "Environmentally, these will be a different look depending on the landscape."
While Graham has started with Nathan's narrative, his ambitions include writing a book with one critically ill child from each state. The purpose, he said, is to offer support to other children who share their circumstances.
"They are facing certain realities that many of us are not facing," Graham said. "They don't operate in the day-to-day world like you and I do. They are used to going to the hospital regularly and having massive procedures done. Or these are children who have been told they will die prematurely."
Top image: Nathan Glad and Dallas Graham at the Leonardo's Lab@Leo Residency, where Graham spoke about his Jolly Troop and the Red Fred Project. May 1, 2013 (Photo: Katie Edwards)
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