Ariel Light put her heart into preparing for her bat mitzvah last October. And her heart had endured quite a journey to get there.
On Feb. 18, 2004, she underwent open-heart surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford to replace a defective heart valve.
Inspired by the popular Lance Armstrong bracelets, the resilient Foster City teenager decided that for her tzedakah project she would craft and sell heart-shaped pins, and then donate all of the proceeds to the children’s hospital.
So far she’s created between 200 and 300 pins and raised more than $1,000.
Ariel asks for a $3 to $10 donation per pin, but Frankie Meyer, co-owner of Meyer-Bunje, a women’s clothing and accessory store in Burlingame, where the pins are sold, reports that people who are moved by Ariel’s story often give more. The store, at 308 Lorton Ave., is not making a profit on the pins, which are available in a variety of designs.
“It is a surprise. I didn’t think anyone would buy them, but a lot of friends buy them and wear them all the time,” says Ariel, 13, who is assisted in making the pins by her two younger brothers and friends.
During the 4½ hours that Ariel was in surgery, her family, members of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, waited anxiously.
Her mother, Michelle Newman-Light, speaks with a shaky voice as she remembers how a Chassidic rabbi, whom her husband had befriended through his catering business, showed up unexpectedly to pray with the family in the hospital chapel.
“The minute everyone came out [of the chapel], the nurse came out to see me,” Newman-Light says. “‘She’s doing great,’ she said.”
Ariel’s defective heart valve wasn’t detected until she was 5 years old. Her doctors predicted that surgery could wait until she was a young adult. But last winter her heart became enlarged with fluid. Her family was told that surgery was necessary and imminent.
“I was a mess,” Newman-Light explains.
But her daughter’s confidence and sensitivity reassured her. The morning of the surgery her mother remembers Ariel saying, “Mom, I’m not scared so you don’t need to be either.”
After the surgery. Ariel spent one week in intensive care. She endured steroid treatment and even had to be readmitted to the hospital. But she only missed three weeks of school in total.
“She’s so strong and extremely mature,” her mother boasts. “Well, my gosh, look what she’s had to go through. What 12-year-old goes through open-heart surgery? Her self-esteem is tremendous.”
Ariel, who loves watching TV and listening to Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson, takes pride in her craft skills and pin project.
“They are wooden and really small, 1-inch tall. We paint them red, pink and purple and friends come over and put beads on them,” Ariel explains.
Eventually Ariel’s valve will have to be replaced, and she will deal with complications resulting from her condition for the rest of her life.
But for now Ariel just has to live with a scar that extends the length of her torso, from her chest to a few inches above her belly button. As vain as teenagers can be, her mother explains that Ariel is “so darn proud of the scar” because she knows that the operation saved her life.