Jaden entered Felicia’s life through foster care. As an infant, he had suffered a traumatic brain injury. When other kids were going to Mommy and Me classes, Felicia and Jaden were going to doctor appointments. There were surgeries, medical procedures, and countless hours of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.

Yet Jaden was still just a kid. He loved the large all-inclusive playground with ramped play structures, deck platforms for wheelchairs, a sensory tunnel, and a communication board with common words and symbols near their home in Overland Park, Kansas. He was delighted by music, especially when his mom sang him songs — “You Are My Sunshine” was his favorite — and was disappointed anytime he was told no.

Despite his wheelchair, he was an explorer. “He hated being confined,” Felicia says. His constant companion was a toy puppy he named Scout. His favorite TV show was Go, Diego, Go, an animated spin-off of Dora the Explorer that follows Dora’s cousin Diego, an 8-year-old boy whose adventures frequently involve rescuing animals and protecting their environment. And he relished the sense of freedom he felt in water. “He loved bath time, loved to swim,” Felicia says. “He was a water baby for sure.”

Jaden’s Journey

But Felicia knew something wasn’t right. In addition to seizures, Jaden was experiencing intestinal issues. “I noticed he was having some episodes, but I didn’t know what was happening,” Felicia says. “I took him to the hospital, and we discovered that it was pain. He was just in a lot of pain. Since he was nonverbal, he couldn’t explain, ‘This hurts’ or ‘This bothers me.’”

For two years, Felicia and Jaden went back and forth between Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas and Boston Children’s Hospital, the No. 1 hospital for children’s gastrointestinal issues. Jaden was diagnosed with gastroparesis, hyperthyroidism, and hyperalgesia, among other things, but nothing the doctors did improved his symptoms. His intestines were failing. After a fourth-month stay in Boston, Jaden was released “with the understanding that he most likely wouldn’t improve,” Felicia says. 

When they returned home, 8-year-old Jaden was put on palliative care. 

Finding Icing Smiles

Icing Smiles Sugar Angle Mike Elder with Jaden’s mom, Felicia Taylor

That July, Jaden received a trip to ​​Give Kids the World Village in Florida through Make-A-Wish. Prior to the trip, Felicia joined a couple Facebook groups to read about other families’ experiences at the nonprofit theme park for critically ill children. That’s when she learned about Icing Smiles. 

Jaden was now on hospice, and Felicia knew it would be his last birthday. She wanted it to be special, and she knew what the theme of the cake should be: Diego. The rest, she left up to the Sugar Angel, Mike Elder.

Mike became a Sugar Angel in 2010 and has completed over 30 calls to action, including our 25,000 cake. The owner of Black Sheep Custom Cakes in Wellington, Missouri, Mike understands the power of a cake. “I had a lot of trauma as a child,” he says “A lot of dark stuff happened to me. Kids don’t deserve to be in these situations. It’s nice to be able to do something fun and positive and support a kid that doesn’t have a whole lot of that going on.”

When Mike’s not baking cakes for kiddos with medical conditions or their siblings, he’s baking 8-foot-tall cakes for Gordon Ramsay or competing in bake-offs on TV (he’s been featured on more than 15 shows).

When the CTA came in from Felicia, he knew he wanted to go all out. “I wanted to make sure it was worthy of this boy,” Mike says. He created a 3-foot-tall sculpted vanilla-and-raspberry Diego cake. He was supposed to deliver the cake to Jaden’s favorite park, but the week before the birthday party, Jaden’s health started rapidly declining. He wasn’t tolerating any of his feedings, he was sleeping more and more, and when he was awake, he was in great pain. 

On Friday, Sept. 7, Jaden moved to a hospice house. 

The Last Birthday

The day of the party, Saturday, Sept. 8, was a beautiful day. The nurses at the hospice house decorated a tranquil outdoor area with Diego decorations. Jaden’s family; teachers, paraprofessionals, and schoolmates; and his health care providers were there. And when Mike showed up with the cake, everyone was in awe. 

“It was overwhelming emotionally to see such a beautiful cake,” Felicia says. “This could have been a contest and Mike would have won hands down. His creative ability was just — he went above and beyond, I mean above and beyond, for my son. It was so cool.”

Although Jaden was really struggling, Felicia says there were a few beautiful moments when he would sit up, open his eyes, look around, and hold onto some of his favorite toys. “I could not have asked for a better day for him,” she says.

That night, Felicia crawled into bed with him at the hospice house. In the middle of the night, Jaden woke up, looked up at Felicia, and said, “Hey.” 

“His favorite thing to say was, ‘Hey,’” Felicia says. “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot. He says, ‘I am Groot.’ That was Jaden with his “Heys.” He had a “Hey” for hello. A “Hey” for goodbye. A “Hey” I’m happy. A “Hey” I’m angry. And we loved it. That was our language, full of “Heys.”

Felicia says it was a loving and tender moment just between Mom and son. “That was the point that I told him that he could let go whenever he was ready — that I would be OK and he could let go. And he did.”

Jaden passed on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019, two days before his ninth birthday.

“It was so hard to do that because it’s out of the ordinary to lose your children,” Felicia says. “You don’t want your children to leave you, especially so permanently. So telling him that was really hard, but it felt right. Being able to tell him that he could let go and he could be free was like the ultimate moment, the ultimate test of being a mother. You know, just allowing your child to transition on, to leave you.”

A Celebration of Life

Felicia never expected her child’s last day on Earth to be a celebration — but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

“Every expectation of his future that he wouldn’t have, every memory of his past that he enjoyed — it was all wrapped up in that one day,” she says. “It meant that, regardless of circumstance, we could celebrate him. It was, in a sense, even therapeutic, just being able to acknowledge that he was a child. This wasn’t an adult who had lived a full life. This was a child, and having this amazing cake was just an honor of his childhood, of what he loved. So to have this cake that was like the final send off for him, to be able to have that day — it felt right. It felt good.”

A year later on Jaden’s birthday, Felicia and her other son, Jason, actually got to enjoy the Diego cake. Felicia couldn’t bear to cut into it the previous year. After the party, a teacher and paraprofessional helped cut the cake up into smaller pieces so it could be frozen. On Sept. 10, 2020, they thawed the cake and ate it. 

“If I were to have a regret — I mean, I don’t regret it, but I kind of wonder what the cake tasted like fresh because it was so good a year old,” Felicia says. “It was amazing.”

Now, every year on Jaden’s birthday, the family goes on “Jaden Adventures.” This year, they traveled to Omaha, Nebraska, to visit the Henry Doorly Zoo. “Jaden would have loved to have gone,” Felicia says.

Jaden’s brother, Jason, also received Super Siblings cakes through Icing Smiles on his birthday. ​​”I really wanted to do something special for him because it was only a couple months after his brother passed away,” Felicia says. “So we went to Main Event and celebrated his birthday. The cake was absolutely awesome.”

“​​I’m so beyond thankful to Icing Smiles for such an amazing program,” she says.

Give the Gift of Smiles

As Felicia’s story attests, it is so much more than a cake. Contributions like yours help keep the smiles rolling. 

We are so excited to share with you our second annual limited-edition Icing Smiles ornament and the family and Sugar Angel who inspired this year’s design.

Whether you’re looking for a new tree ornament to add the final touch to your holiday setup, a gift to give a cake-lover or Sugar Angel in your life, or a way to support a nonprofit near and dear to your heart, your purchase helps us to provide custom celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by the critical illness of a child. 

How? The cost of this ornament covers the cost of a cake so that a child can receive smiles and happy memories, even in the darkest of times.

Meet Super Sibling Christopher

This year’s ornament is a replica of a cake delivered to Super Sibling Christopher Gonce on his fourth birthday. Christopher’s family has a genetic predisposition for cancer called Li-Fraumeni. Christopher tested positive for the gene, which means he has a 50% chance of childhood cancer and an 80% chance of lifetime cancer. So far, Christopher has been cancer free.

However, his little brother Joshua hasn’t been as lucky. The doctors found a large sarcoma in Joshua’s leg during his first annual MRI. Now 20 months old, Joshua and his parents spend a lot of time in the hospital at doctor and chemo appointments.

“Christopher has struggled to vie for attention,” says his mom, Rebecca Gonce. “He is not quite old enough to explain what is going on in our lives, but he knows his brother gets a lot of special treatment: He doesn’t always have to eat his dinner. He gets to sleep with Mommy when he isn’t feeling well. But Christopher never puts up a fight. He has been so patient with all the extra attention his brother has been getting.”

Rebecca heard about Icing Smiles through her mother-in-law and thought it would be the perfect way to give Christopher a day all to himself. She applied and was connected with Sugar Angel Megan Angolia. Christopher’s chosen theme? Construction. 

“It’s an obsession with the boys in my house,” Rebecca says. “He can name any construction vehicle that’s ever been created. He will correct me if I call it a backhoe when it’s a front-end loader. ‘That’s not a bulldozer,’ he’ll say. ‘That’s a skid steer.’ We drive a special way to school so he can have construction sites on his side of the window.”

Constructing the Cake

A figurative sculptor, Megan started working as a cake decorator at a bakery in 2016. Using her background in sculpture, she specialized in 3D fondant cake toppers and sculpted cakes. But having previously worked at a nonprofit, she was looking for a way to give back. She joined Icing Smiles as a Sugar Angel five years ago. Christopher’s cake was her third call to action. 

For Christopher’s construction-themed cake, she created a front-end loader using modeling chocolate. The loader, manned by a character that looks just like Christopher, is lifting a 6-inch vanilla cake with vanilla icing. It sits on a chocolate-frosted cake scattered with Oreo-crumble dirt and edible construction cones.

Megan delivered the cake the day of Christopher’s birthday party, and Christopher was nibbling on the construction cones before she could finish setting everything up on a table wrapped in caution tape. 

“It was fantastic,” Rebecca says. “I swear, she’s a creative genius. All I did was say construction, and she just went with the idea. She even asked me for a picture of Christopher so she could model the character that was driving the loader after him — big head and big eyes just like in real life.”

For the first time, Christopher was able to invite friends from school to help him celebrate. They played in a bounce house for hours. But it wasn’t just a special day for Christopher. 

“Remembering the joy this gave me brings me to tears,” Rebecca says. “We have had a rough year. Finances have been tight since our youngest’s diagnosis, and I haven’t been as present with Christopher because I have been in the hospital with Joshua. This cake made our son feel so valued and important, and the gesture of kindness and love made us all feel understood and cared for.”

For weeks after the party, Christopher talked about the “cake lady,” asking when she can come back, his mom says. 

Picking the 2022 Ornament

Last year’s ornament featured a replica of the first cake ever delivered by Icing Smiles — for Violet’s forever 7th birthday in January of 2010. Sales helped us raise $5,658, which has helped make the 2,700+ cakes delivered so far in 2022 possible. 

“When picking the cake this year, we wanted to showcase how our bakers take something that doesn’t look like a cake and make it into a cake,” says Icing Smiles’ Development Coordinator Chelsea Boog. “It was such an honor for the organization to get to serve Christopher, and we are so excited to hear he loved his cake. This ornament is special to us, telling the story of the power of a cake and what Icing Smiles does, and we love that this year’s is inspired by a Super Sibling!”

Rebecca says she was shocked when she learned Christopher’s cake would be represented on the 2022 ornament: “To think we’re a part of it is really astounding. You have an opportunity to share that special ornament and that special day and make something so important to us a part of a family memory for someone else. It’s wonderful.”

Give the Gift of Smiles

The beautifully designed ornament is 2.3 wide and 2.5 inches tall and is available for purchase online. Yes, we know the form says tickets, but we can’t change it. One “ticket” equals one ornament. The price includes shipping, and all ornaments will be shipped beginning of December.

Children with chronic medical conditions endure a lot, but they’re not the only ones. Life changes for the entire family. That’s why Icing Smiles offers cakes for siblings, too.

How Siblings Might Feel

Living with a sibling with a critical illness is not easy. Parents have to pay extra attention to a child with a chronic illness, and it’s common for their brothers and sisters to feel neglected, ignored, or defined by their sibling’s needs. Not only might the healthy sibling feel jealous, angry, and sad — but they also often feel guilty about feeling this way. 

One mom told us about the sacrifices her daughter makes so that her brother can survive: “Emma is the sibling of a child with a chronic medical condition. It’s hard on the siblings who are navigating their own way through life alongside a brother or sister who is different and who needs support. I’m certain that being the sibling to a child with different needs is a struggle. I know you have those moments where your heart stings with jealousy, where you’re worried sick over your sibling. I know you have those moments when you get mad because you can’t go to all the birthday parties or events you want to because it’s flu season and it’s just too risky.”

This complex interplay of experiences is known as the well-sibling syndrome. Studies show children with siblings who have chronic physical disabilities, for example, avoid talking about it with both their parents and siblings. Well siblings tend to keep their own problems to themselves in an attempt to avoid stressing their parents. Well siblings also report feeling a need to make others in the family happy, feeling ignored because their sibling requires more attention from their parents, and feeling resentment toward both their parents and sibling.

Studies also show that healthy siblings’ involvement in care for their ill sibling is positive and leads to a feeling of involvement and empowerment. They develop greater maturity, increased empathy and patience, and higher tolerance of diversity than their peers. 

Take Super Sibling Caroline. Caroline is only two years older than her brother, but she looks out for him and has learned what food requires his pills and how to advocate for him through anxious episodes at school. She is his biggest cheerleader at all fundraising events!

How Icing Smiles Cares for Siblings

At Icing Smiles, we understand the stresses of having a sibling with a chronic health problem. Our Sugar Angels have been baking cakes for our Super Siblings since Day 1. 

We serve siblings of qualified medical children, including siblings of qualified medical children who have earned their wings within the past two years. Sibling applications must be accompanied by a copy of the child’s birth certificate or copy of an insurance card with the child’s and parent’s name. Alternative documents might include medical records, school records, and religious records (such as a certificate of baptism issued by a church) showing the names of the mother or father and the child. 

Each sibling is allowed one Dream Cake and one Fun Cake through our program. 

What Our Families Say

Super Siblings Renee and Caroline made magical memories when they received birthday cakes from Icing Smiles Sugar Angels.

When Emma received a cake from Icing Smiles, she smiled ear to ear. Her mom told us about the impact of the Icing Smiles cake on Emma and her family: “My daughter was beaming with pride. That moment was priceless. All of her friends were very impressed with her cake. The baker, Debby, was amazing! She put a special charm on my daughter’s cake so she could have a memento to keep. I was moved to tears. You can feel the love and hard work she put into that cake to make a little girl’s wish come true. Thank you, Icing Smiles, for acknowledging these siblings and all their sacrifices and to all involved. We are truly blessed to have received such a special gift.”

After Sugar Angel Anna King Chatterton made a cake for the sibling of a sick child, she received a sweet note from the family: “Thank you so much for the beautiful cake for our daughter’s birthday. I am so thankful that there are organizations like Icing Smiles who care for siblings like Jane who have endured more than most! We can’t thank you enough for this precious gift.”

Another mom shared with us the impact receiving an Icing Smiles cake had on her son Damian: “Damian is a sibling who has definitely given up on his fair share of things in life. We were so excited to be able to give him something so, so special. Our baker took so much time and effort into making this absolutely perfect for him. Thank you so much for allowing my son to experience such an incredible act of kindness! He felt so loved and special today. Thank you again from a mom who can never give this sibling all he deserves in life.”

What Our Sugar Angels Say

Sugar Angel Luasha Han made a cake for Super Sibling Damian, and Sugar Angel Joni Adkins recently delivered a Squishmallows cake to Super Sibling Norma Jean.

So often an Icing Smiles cake has an impact not only on the family but also on the Sugar Angel who created it.  

Sugar Angel Luasha Han shares what it was like for her to make the cake for Super Sibling Damian: “Out of more than 200 cakes I have made, this one turned out to be the most special cake I have ever created. It was made as a donation to a very special boy who had never had a birthday party before because of many reasons. The smile I have created on his face is the most precious thing I could ever get in return for my work! I will always remember this wonderful moment and keep creating more smiles for kids who are fighting every day.”

Sugar Angel Joni Adkins recently delivered a Squishmallows cake to Super Sibling Norma Jean and shared her experiences with us: “I delivered the cake, and Miss Norma Jean oohed and aahed over it — making me very happy.  As we were getting a photo of me, Norma Jean, and her cake, a song came on the radio, and she squealed: ‘The song!’ I don’t know what song it was, but I was told that this song was very significant to the whole family. Her mom teared up and turned up the song. She got a picture frame from her living room, brought it to me, and began to tell me about how Norma Jean was the younger sister of Chika but was the one to take care of her respiratory needs, medications, etc. Chika passed away 10 months ago. I was touched. I told Norma Jean how proud and honored I was to meet such a strong, beautiful, and vibrant woman and got a hug from her mom as I rushed out of the house trying not to fall into a blubbering mush of emotion in front of this family that has experienced so much!”

Sugar Angel Mycah Jones made her first Icing Smiles cake for Super Sibling Ezekiel who was celebrating his first birthday party not in his brother’s hospital room. “Talk about an honor being able to provide that for him,” she says. 

Our Sugar Angels have made many Dream Cakes and Fun Cakes over the years for Super Siblings. Many of their stories are featured on our blog.

Apply for a Cake

We believe that something as simple as a cake can have a huge impact. Each cake we serve is more than just a cake — these baked treats are a chance to smile, celebrate, feel normal, and temporarily escape from worry.

If you know a Super Sibling who would like a chance to make a magical memory, request a cake today.

Aubrey requested a dolphin-themed cake with the colors purple and teal. Elena went the extra mile with this two-tiered masterpiece.

The bottom tier is decorated with fondant textured circles to resemble beach shells and the top tier features a hand-painted dolphin with edible sugar pearls. For the topper, she made a 3D “splash” by creating an isomalt sail to create movement and the feeling of a dolphin having fun and splashing in the ocean. The overall color palette was bright and cheery and of course, incorporated Audrey’s favorite colors. Filled with chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream, not only did Elena make a cake that is fun and delicious, but it is also a joy to look at.

With smiles + Cake,

Olivia Graupmann

Icing Smiles Blog Writer