Jan Maresh knew it wouldn’t be hard to awaken her 15-year-old son before sunrise Friday. All she had to do was remind him.

“Patrick, it’s time to go up, up, up!”

Within an hour, the teen, who has been nonverbal since birth and struggled with multiple disabilities, jumped excitedly as he watched a crew inflate a blue hot air balloon on a Lisle soccer field.

And when all was ready, Patrick and his service dog, Mary Lou, climbed aboard as this year’s first passengers in what has become a cherished tradition at the annual Eyes to the Skies Festival in the western suburb.

The community festival, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend, sends dozens of hot air balloons up and away for crowds on the ground to watch and enjoy. But for the past 18 years, one of those balloons, “Serena’s Song,” has been reserved to offer children and adults with disabilities a 15-minute trip into the sky.

Some of the riders spend their days hooked up to ventilators and feeding tubes. Many are in wheelchairs.

Yet year after year, their families bring them back for the tethered rides, booked weeks in advance and planned carefully around feedings, hospital visits and therapy appointments. Organizers call the return riders their “frequent fliers.”

“It’s the highlight of the year,” said Maresh, of Downers Grove, recalling how her son carried a cardboard picture of the balloon in his pocket for weeks after his first ride. He would pull it out and point upward to anyone he encountered. The family has been back five times since then.

“How cool is it for a child that everything is challenging for to say, ‘I did this,’ when the average person didn’t?” Maresh said.

That was just what festival organizers had in mind when they contacted the balloon’s owner, Gary Waldman, and pilot, Phil Gray, nearly two decades ago. Local officials knew the men from Iowa had built the nation’s first and only Federal Aviation Administration-certified balloon for disabled passengers in honor of Waldman’s daughter, Serena, who has cerebral palsy.

They also knew some local families would love such an opportunity.

“Most of these kids have been shut out of so many things,” said Susan Friend, longtime executive director of SEASPAR, the special recreation association serving 11 communities in the western suburbs. “We try to make this as carefree as can be. The barriers are taken away.”

“Serena’s Song” has a special wicker basket with a hinged door that allows riders who use wheelchairs to board easily. Wheelchair tie-downs secure riders to the floor.

It didn’t take long for families to learn about the free hot air balloon rides offered at sunrise and sunset. Today, the 60 to 70 available spots fill quickly, requiring standby lists. As of last year, 1,595 people with disabilities had participated, Friend said.

Dennis and Donna Zink, of Aurora, began bringing their daughter, Lauren, to Lisle for the rides when she was 6 years old. Lauren Zink, who is medically fragile and in a wheelchair, is now 22 and has been back all but one year since.

“Even the years when the weather was testy, we would go just because of the bond we formed with the people there,” Donna Zink said. “The minute we get out of the van, we hear them screaming, ‘Lauren! Lauren!'”

Friend said she and other organizers are heartbroken when frequent fliers’ names don’t show up on the reservation lists. They know how grave some of their medical conditions are.

“We worry about a lot of them, and in fact, we’ve lost some,” Friend said. “You have to build up a little bit of a wall sometimes — but you really can’t.”

When weather cooperates, organizers are able to offer rides to every person on the reservation list as well as those on standby. If winds or rain prove too dangerous, riders usually are accommodated at another time during the festival, Friend said.

No such rescheduling was necessary Friday morning, as Karen and John Dixon stood on each side of their son Craig’s wheelchair, rubbing his legs and holding his hand in excitement. Craig Dixon, 27, is a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.

“This isn’t like getting strapped in the van, no, sir,” Karen Dixon cooed to her son as workers tied his chair to the basket and found her a place to stand. “Honey, I’m right back here.”

As the balloon soared up over cars, trees and festival tents, Craig Dixon looked out and responded the only way he could.

With a big, toothy smile.

Source: Chicago Tribune

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