A 9-year-old boy who captured hearts throughout Connecticut during his brave fight against a painful cancer has died while using his mom’s head as a pillow.
Mickey Flemmings heard her only child take his last breathe Thursday at 6:02 p.m. His oncologist planted “a million kisses” on his lifeless body as she did at every appointment, his mom said.
“I am at peace,” Mickey Flemmings said, noting she drew comfort from the thoughts and prayers of so many people and thanks them for the many donations.
“There’s really nothing you can tell a parent when they lose a child…He was such a kind-hearted, sweet boy you couldn’t help but love him.”
Maicah, who was going into fourth-grade and was known for his enchanting, contagious smile, became popular in Connecticut after two of his teachers, former kindergarten teacher Lindsay Fitzgerald and third-grade teacher, Annie Carnes started a GoFundMe for Maicah’s family, as his mom, a hard-working proud Jamaican woman and single mom had to quit her job three years ago to care for him.
She was struggling to meet basic living expenses.
So far the GoFundMe has raised just under $25,000 and continues as a fund to help pay for his end of life and funeral expenses.
It went from a help Maicah keep his smile through the fight fund to the title, “In Loving Memory of Maicah Our Smiling Angel.”
A viewing will be held for family, friends, medical staff and teachers, soon, and later, a celebration of life for the community to attend Aug. 9 at a location to be determined.
Maicah was diagnosed in kindergarten with neuroblastoma which creates tumors throughout the body.
He recently literally lost his ability to smile because of the cancer and was in constant pain.
Mickey Flemmings said the pain become unmanageable at home last Monday so she brought him to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center where he had been treated.
As he used her head as a pillow while the two lay together, “I was counting his breaths because they were few and far between.”
Then she felt his head “flop.”
His doctor told the family they could have some time with him after he passed. So they gave him a bath, put lotion on him, dressed him in his favorite Minecraft PJs.
The oncologist who would always ask Maicah at the end of appointments, “Do you want your one million kisses?” and gave them to him a last time.
“He looked so peaceful,” mom said.
Mickey Flemmings said she finds comfort in knowing that because he was introduced to God at an early age, she would often find Maicah praying “on his own.”
Aside from his smile, the neuroblastoma also took away his Make-A-Wish birthday trip to the Bahamas with mom about a month ago.
The morning she woke Maicah up to leave for the island trip his legs caved and he went to an emergency department instead.
He wanted the doctor to come in soon because he wanted to play in the sand.
Mom knew at that point there would be no sand for Maicah.
Upon his passing the teachers wrote on the GoFundMe page:
“He was just 9 years old. A kind, loving, and bright soul who touched the hearts of everyone who knew him. His strength, smile, and gentle spirit were truly remarkable, and his absence leaves a space that can never be filled.”
Kindergarten teacher Fitzgerald has said she and Maicah, “just kind of bonded,” from the get-go in kindergarten.
She called Maicah her “Velcro kid” because he often sat on her lap while she gave a lesson or sat in her teacher’s chair. Hugs were his “love language,” mom has said, and the smile remained, until it couldn’t, through all the treatments and pain.
“Even the kids wanted to be around him,” Fitzgerald has said.
The cancer started in 27 places in Maicah’s body and went down to zero following many types of treatment, including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, a stem cell transplant and more. The family lives in Manchester.
“Neuroblastomas are cancers that start in early nerve cells (called neuroblasts) of the sympathetic nervous system, so they can be found anywhere along this system,” according to the American Cancer Society.
Then the cancer returned to 17 places and moved fast in the end, Mickey Flemmings said. The GoFundMe is here.
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