MAINVILLE, Ohio — Ashton Hawkins is a girly girl. She is 8 years old and loves makeup, painted nails, and dolls. She wants to wear a cute ribbon in her hair, but her mother says she can’t leave the house without wearing a hat. Two surgeries, radiation treatments and chemotherapy that Hawkins underwent to fight a brain tumor left her with no hair.
Her mother, Amanda, remembers the day her daughter decided to shave off the scattered hairs on her head.
“She didn’t cry,” she said. “I cried more. One day she said, ‘Okay, I’m ready to do this.'” And we went upstairs and she grabbed a razor and shaved her head. I started and, you know, I started to lose it, but she stood strong. She was ready for it. ”
As if a brain tumor wasn’t bad enough, being bald as a child set the stage for her daughter. So when Starlight Children’s Foundation sent Hawkins a special bald Brave Barbie doll, her mother said it made her daughter feel special.
“For Ashton, it was about showing her, ‘Hey, there’s a toy out there just like mine,'” Amanda said.
It was important for my sisters to normalize what they were going through.
“In a way, I think this is showing them. We know that our sister is sick, but look, there’s a Barbie doll that represents our sister. It’s okay,” Amanda said.
These particular Barbie dolls are not sold in stores. These are made to be distributed by organizations like Starlight for children battling cancer.
Hawkins’ hair is growing out now. And there is incredible hope that the treatment she is receiving will destroy the cancer she is fighting so hard to get rid of. In the meantime, she and her family plan to hold on to her special Barbie doll and its lessons of acceptance.
