Olivia Hennon likes to draw.
More than that, she loved art camp — a week-long summer camp she went to in high school while her parents worked. Not only did she enjoy being inside when it was hot, Hennon liked getting the chance to be creative and have fun.
It was also the place where she met Margaret Romph.
Margaret became quadriplegic at 5 years old — unable to move any of her limbs or torso — after being injured in a car accident and even pronounced dead on the scene before being revived. She underwent numerous procedures and treatment in hospitals in St. Louis and Baltimore, along with Columbia, where she had a team of doctors at the Women and Children’s Hospital who oversaw minor concerns and performed necessary surgery.
Hennon, a third-year student and leadership member of MizzouThon, didn’t know it at the time, but Margaret would quickly grow to become one of her best friends. From there, the relationship that formed left a lasting impact on Hennon, which she hopes to pass forward through her own charity, “Little Box of Sunshine”, by donating care-packages to hospitals nationwide.
“I met Margaret in July 2014 at that art camp,” Hennon said. “I was drawing whatever project we were doing that day, and Margaret’s nurse was drawing hers. Margaret would tell the nurse what she wanted her to draw and she would try to put it on the paper. Margaret got so frustrated because the nurse wasn’t doing what she had pictured in her head, and she said, ‘I just want it to be like Olivia’s.’”
After that, Hennon offered to draw Margaret’s for her, which was the first interaction between the two of them.
“Just [by] her being able to tell me what she wanted me to put on the paper for her [meant] I was giving her hands in a way that only I could at that time,” Hennon said. “She wanted it to be like mine.”
Following the art camp, Margaret and Hennon remained close back home in Jefferson City.
“I would say we [grew up together],” Hennon said. “We were friends … going to high school … I feel like that’s a big deal. I learned so much from her just about having a positive outlook on life.”
In her free time, Hennon found herself over at Margaret’s house quite often. The pair would work on homework together, or Hennon would help Margaret with her everyday activities to spend time with her.
“Just having me there made her more independent,” Hennon said. “She depended on someone for everything, but having a friend that could help feed [her] and having a friend that could help [her] do homework was a lot more fun than having a nurse or [her] mom do it. So if I could go and provide those few hours of being more fun than a nurse or a mom, that’s something that both she and I enjoyed.”
As they spent more and more time together, their bond continued to grow. Hennon found herself closer to Margaret and closer to the Romph family altogether.
“Her family had become my family,” she said. “We hung out together so much, and they always made me feel so included — and they still do. I was always welcome … I could always knock on their door or go to their house. I think they did that because they knew that when Margaret had a tight circle of people that she knew she could count on, that made her therapies easier. It made her days easier … That’s something that I’ll cherish forever.”
In Hennon’s junior year of high school, one of Margaret’s trips to the hospital became much more than just a routine visit. After an unusual call from Margaret’s mother in the middle of the night, Hennon suspected something was wrong.
“I answered right away,” she said. “[Margaret’s mother] said, ‘We’re calling people up, if they want to say goodbye to Margaret,’ … It came completely out of left field.”
As it turned out, Margaret’s visit to the hospital was supposed to be unalarming, but a sudden turn in her condition made the situation very serious, very fast. Hennon quickly got in the car with her parents and came to Columbia to visit Margaret in the hospital, greeted by a waiting room full of people.
“I was really lucky to live close enough that I had time to get there and say goodbye,” Hennon said. “We kind of had our moment. She was not with us, but I know that she heard me. I talked to her and then just left. It was the most bizarre feeling to just leave the hospital and leave [my] friend there, not knowing what was going to happen.”
A few days later, on May 6, 2019, Margaret died at the Women and Children’s hospital in Columbia at 15 years old.
“[When] I woke up, her family had posted a video of her sisters sharing the news that she had passed overnight,” Hennon said. “That morning was a strange feeling because it’s not like it was a surprise. I knew what was going to happen. That evening, just going over to Margaret’s house to be with her family and help them in any way that I could with her arrangements.”
Friends and family of Margaret were requested to wear purple and their “Miracles 4 Margaret” shirts at the visitation, named after the foundation Margaret’s family started to continue her legacy. During the service, Margaret’s family set up tables of all of her favorite things, including a varsity jacket for cheer she had earned.
“All of these things that she loved just completely filled the church,” Hennon said. “Her wheelchair was there and her friends and family were all there. It was a great feeling to just walk in and feel surrounded by her one last time.”
In addition to close friends and family, a big group of MizzouThon members attended the service in support of Margaret’s family.
“All the people that she loved were there,” Hennon said. “MizzouThon people coming down from Columbia is something that kind of caught me off guard. I got there at the beginning and stayed through the end, just sitting in the pews and visiting with people who came. When I was sitting there, all of these MizzouThon people walked in. Just knowing how much they meant to her, and how much she meant to them was really, really cool.”
According to Hennon, Margaret did indeed mean as much to MizzouThon as the organization did to her. She had been involved for multiple years and became the organization’s third “Miracle in the Sky” after she died. She even brought Hennon to the Main Event years before she died, insisting that Hennon would enjoy it.
“I think I was in fifth or sixth grade at the time,” she said. “[I saw how] all these college kids [were] so in touch with those kiddos and [how] they wanted to help them and [be] supportive. I knew since then that it would be a fun group to be involved with.”
This year, Hennon lives back home in Jefferson City, working on-site to complete her elementary education degree. She’s been a part of MizzouThon as a member of the leadership team all three years.
“[Currently], I’m serving as a member of the Cause Division, which oversees the organization’s relationship with our miracle families and helps share their stories,” she said. “It’s really cool that we have a group of kids that we support that have a range of abilities, and it’s cool to bring those kids [together with] a group of college students … They love getting to know us and we love getting to know them. Everybody’s just excited.”
Hennon has previously served as the vice president of the Cause Division and uses MizzouThon as a way to honor Margaret and what she stood for, but has taken it a few steps further. She is currently the founder and president of “Little Box of Sunshine”. The charity has delivered care packages to more than 21 hospitals across 17 different states.
“In each box, there’s a little card that has a picture of me and Margaret on it,” Hennon said. “It just tells a little bit of my story, so that whenever those boxes get to other kids in hospitals like [Margaret], they can be encouraged by our friendship.”
That friendship also inspired Hennon to join Margaret’s family as a board member for “Miracles 4 Margaret,” where she and the Romph family have helped donate more than 4,000 blankets to those in foster care, adoption agencies, children’s hospitals and pregnancy centers, among other locations.
“Margaret loved blankets,” Hennon said. “Because of her injury, she couldn’t regulate her body temperature. So if she was outside and it was hot outside, she was hot. If she [was] outside and it [was] cold outside, she [was] freezing cold. And in buildings. She was always freezing cold because of the air conditioning… So she was always covered in blankets in her wheelchair.”
What started as just a simple offer from Hennon at art camp turned into a lifelong bond for her and Margaret, and continues to inspire Hennon to be an advocate and philanthropist in memory of Margaret through her organization, one care package at a time.
“Never be afraid to ask if you can help,” she said. “I’m so glad I offered to help Margaret at that art camp because it turned into such a great friendship … She had a smile that could light up any room. If she can get up every day and be excited about something, so can I. That’s something I will always remind myself of.”
Edited by Emma Flannery | eflannery@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Sam Acevedo and Jacob Richey | jrichey@themaneater.com
