MAINEVILLE, Ohio — Ashton Hawkins is a girly girl. At 8 years old, she loves makeup, painted fingernails and dolls. She would love to have pretty bows in her hair, but her mom says she won't leave the house without a hat on. The two surgeries, rounds of radiation and chemotherapy Hawkins has undergone to fight her brain cancer have robbed her of her hair.
Her mother, Amanda, remembers the day her daughter decided to shave off the wisps of hair dotting her head.
"She didn't cry," she said. "I cried way more. One day, she said, 'OK, I'm ready to do it.' And we went upstairs and she took the razor ... and started shaving her head. And as the the little bit of hair that was left started coming out, you know, I lost it. But she stood strong. She didn't cry. She was ready for it."
As if brain cancer wasn't enough of a challenge, being bald as a child singled her daughter out. So when Starlight Children's Foundation sent Hawkins a special Brave Barbie doll that is bald, her mom says it made her daughter feel special.
"What it did for Ashton was show her, hey, there's a toy out there just like me," Amanda said.
It was also important for her sisters to see, normalizing what their sister was experiencing.
"I think in a way this shows them, we know my sister's sick, but, you know, hey, there's a Barbie out there that represents our sister. And it's going to be OK," Amanda said.
These particular Barbie dolls are not sold in stores. They are made to be distributed by organizations like Starlight for children battling cancer.
Hawkins' hair is growing in now. And there is incredible hope the treatment's she's been undergoing will destroy the cancer she's fighting so hard to banish. Meanwhile, she and her family will keep her special Barbie and its lessons of acceptance with them.
