Teen sends healing cranes to hospital

Mercedes Oxford, 15, never forgot the story of Sadako Sasaki, a sick young girl who held on to hope for healing by folding a thousand origami cranes.

"I was totally inspired by that story," she recalled.

Mercedes was not alone.

Sadako, who died of leukemia 10 years after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, has inspired children around the world to fold cranes for healing and peace.

Sadako's poignant story came back to Mercedes as she pondered what project to take on for her Silver Award, the second highest in Girl Scouts. She decided to fold a thousand cranes to create a message of hope and healing.

In the beginning, Mercedes didn't know that her hundreds of birds would land at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. She simply began folding origami paper into one delicate crane after another.

"I thought it would be a cool challenge," she said.

From an early age, Mercedes was not a child averse to challenges. She started in kindergarten as a Daisy in Girl Scouts, then spent years working on badges.

Her parents, Jefferson and Michelle Oxford, supported their youngest daughter's high aspirations in school as well as scouting. Jefferson said Mercedes, a student at Kalispell Junior High School, thrives in gifted and talented programs.

She opted to take tough advanced placement courses for the challenge, forsaking a guarantee of a 4.0 average in regular classes.

"I don't know where she gets her brains," her father said with a laugh. "It must be from her mother."

It came as no surprise that Mercedes wanted to go for the Silver Award with a project designed to offer hope and healing. For as long as he could remember, Jefferson said Mercedes wanted to use her talents to help people.

Girl Scout guidelines for the award encourage girls to have their family pitch in to create positive time spent together. Mercedes organized parties in which her mom and sister Sarah watched movies and folded cranes.

Her dad's night work schedule interfered with his party participation but Mercedes said that was just as well.

"Dad's crane-making challenged," she said. "It takes a while to fold a crane."

She launched her folding journey last spring using origami paper in all the colors of the rainbow. Her first doubts emerged when she counted up about 200 birds.

"I thought, 'Oh my gosh, how long is this going to take?'" she recalled.

With family and her troop No. 774 leader Diana Olson cheering her on, Mercedes persisted between school activities, practicing the violin, viola, piano and harp and delivering the Daily Inter Lake at 5 a.m. each morning.

When her resolve flagged, she would think of Sadako, who kept going even as her life slipped away. Mercedes averaged about 20 a week while her family parties generated 50 to 75 at a time.

"It takes a lot of dedication," she said. "Your fingers get so sore."

Olson vouched for the effort Mercedes put into each crane. She recalled going through a final step of the Silver project in which Mercedes taught her to fold a crane. It was a lot of folding.

"It took me about eight minutes to fold one crane," Olson said.

A discouraging setback occurred along the way, perpetrated by the family cat. Temptation overwhelmed Sad Eyes when he spied Mercedes' stash of little birds in her bedroom.

Sad Eyes stalked, then attacked a box of about 200 paper cranes. A scene of stunning crane carnage told a tale on Sad Eyes.

"I had to redo about half of them," Mercedes said.

In spite of the disaster, she reached her goal of a thousand cranes in September. It was time to create a piece of art.

Her first idea was a mobile with flying cranes attached to a series of hoops. She hoped to display the piece at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Mercedes and her troop leader Olson consulted with artist Patty Stewart, who coordinates the art gallery at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Stewart, while enthusiastic about the cranes, feared the paper-based mobile could pose a fire danger.

Following Stewart's advice, Mercedes and her family worked on some sketches to find a way to attach her cranes to a canvas. Sarah's artistic flair was especially helpful to her.

"My sister is much more of an artist than I am," Mercedes admitted.

Mercedes finally settled on an abstract landscape of many-colored cranes making up mountains, grass, the moon and sun. Getting from concept sketch to finished project proved a daunting task for the whole family.

Her dad pitched in to build the frame and canvas but problems popped up when they began attaching cranes with rubber cement.

"You had to hold each one for about 15 minutes," Jefferson said.

Finally, armed with more than $50 in super glue, Mercedes' Silver Award project took shape. She said her fingers seemed permanently stuck together before the last crane landed on the canvas.

Glue, combined with a final coat of lacquer, filled the Oxford household with a killer odor.

"All of us had headaches," she said.

Dubbing her canvas "Cranium," Mercedes donated the finished work to Stewart to hang in the hospital gallery as part of an exhibit called "Living with the Animals." It received a warm reception from the artist.

"It's very colorful and upbeat," she said. "It's playful."

Mercedes said she was relieved and proud when she finished her journey of a thousand cranes. But she it wasn't long before she embarked on the first steps toward earning the Gold Award, the Girl Scout equivalent of Eagle Scout.

"It takes a long time," she said. "I'm on step two."

Her future dreams include serving in the Peace Corps and a career in either music or medicine.

As for "Cranium," Stewart said that she will find another place for the teenager's message of hope and healing when this exhibit ends on May 18. Mercedes would be happy to have her cranes in the hospital or Brendan House to inspire the sick or aged.

"The picture shows hope," she said. "The sun's coming up and it's a new day."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.