When the Score Hit 67

The anticipation is palpable. Mississippi Valley 28, Auburn 66. Kady Lay lines up at the free-throw line. She nails it. The scoreboard hits 67. What happens next is pure pandemonium. The entire stadium explodes.

Not because of a game-changing play, but because the scoreboard reads 67.

What is 67? At first glance, it's absurd. Meaningless. Just a number.

But for Gen Alpha, it's so much more. An inside joke that everyone's somehow in on. A way to share joy over something completely random. A moment of pure, communal silliness that defines what it means to be a kid right now.

What Cancer Takes

Cancer doesn't just take health. It takes moments like that basketball game.

It takes the simple joy of discovering the world alongside your peers: learning the new memes, phrases, and inside jokes that every "Unc" is always one step behind on. It takes the silliness, the randomness, the tiny cultural moments that fill childhood with excitement and creativity.

While their peers keep moving forward, a child in treatment watches that world drift farther away. The newest fad. The latest joke. The TikTok trend everyone's talking about. They fade into the background as scans, treatments, and hospital visits take over. It's not just the medical battle or the fear. It's each small moment of communal joy slipping out of reach.

A Parent's Grief

As a parent, you'd give anything to hand those moments back. The silliness. The normalcy. The version of childhood that wasn't defined by medical charts and waiting rooms.

But cancer steals something else, too: the problems you used to know how to fix. The heartbreak that shrank under a hug. The pain soothed by "It's going to be okay." Cancer takes that promise. You can still say the words, but they don't carry the same weight anymore. And with that comes a kind of powerlessness no parent should ever have to feel.

What Cancer Can't Take

Cancer takes so much. But it doesn't take everything.

Children facing unimaginable circumstances still find ways to show up for others, to create, to connect, to offer kindness. Through every difficult moment, parents provide irreplaceable comfort and strength. And alongside that, something else matters too: the connection between kids.

A card covered in memes and doodles from another child offers something beautifully simple: a small celebration of the childhood that's still theirs to claim.

A Card That Represents So Much More

This card was created during a community art event at the Sarasota Art Museum. Families stopped by during one of the museum's free Second Sunday programs to make messages for people battling cancer. When I first uploaded it to our gallery, I didn't know what 67 meant. I labeled it "kids, encouragement" and moved on.

Now I know: it's so much more. A communal voice. A connection between kids that carries more than words ever could. It's the shared joy in the absurd, in all that's silly and random and perfectly meaningless. It's encouragement. It's an embodiment of the quiet resilience children offer one another. And it's proof that the world of childhood, of joy, of community, still exists beyond hospital walls.

An Invitation

Right now, this 67 card sits alone in our gallery.

If your child giggles every time they hear 67…

If they're fluent in memes and inside jokes that baffle you daily…

Invite them to create a card for another child facing cancer.

It can be as simple as a short note. A drawing. One child's message to another. An act of kindness that says: even when everything else is uncertain, the small, silly things, the ones that make you feel like a regular kid, are still here. And so is the community that shares them with you.

Visit WondrVoices to learn how to participate.

Drawings can be submitted via the WondrVoices app on iOS and Android.