Giddy children filled the air with energy and laughter during Fountain Valley’s Little League Opening Day on Saturday. But one much-loved, blue-eyed 6-year-old t-ball player — part of the excitement just last season — was missing.
His mom and dad, Tim and Jamie Ankeny, and his grandma, Sharon Jurgens, from Washington state, watched the parade of children enter the field as rain sprinkled down.
Carter Ankeny, the family’s “ball of light,” died Oct. 8th of complications from treatment for leukemia.
Jurgens and her husband Dennis wanted to do something special to honor Carter’s memory and his love for baseball, so she teamed up with the Fountain Valley league and created the Carter Ankeny Inspirational Player Award. It will carry a small cash prize that will be given to one child in each of the league’s divisions at the end of the season.
The award was announced as a surprise to Tim and Jamie when they were called up to the microphone during the March 3 ceremonies.
It was an emotional moment for the couple, who thought their son was being honored with a Carter Strong Forever baseball banner.
Diana Mordin, who advocates for families experiencing issues related to cancer, has become a close friend of the pair and helped Jurgens come up with the idea.
“It will be given to someone who works really hard, is dedicated and has the passion and spirit and love of the game that Carter had. He was magical,” Mordin said.
Tim, who coached Carter last year when he was on the Cubs, said no one could tell his son was sick. Even in remission, he was on “maintenance treatments” including chemotherapy, and he occasionally took up to 14 pills a day.
Carter was one of the biggest and strongest kids on the team, Tim said. “He threw really fast and was always afraid of hitting kids in the chest.”
Jamie remembers the goofy and ever-growing routine Carter would run through before hitting the t-ball.
“He would tap dirt off his cleats, pat the plate with the bat and swing. And then miss,” she joked. “He always had dirty pants and a big smile because he had to slide into every base.”
Then on July 7, 2017, Carter’s parents got the devastating news that he had relapsed. As a school project the 6-year-old had to create a bucket list of things he wanted to do over the summer. The family fast-forwarded that process to accomplish the items on his list in one week, before he started treatment again.
Carter ate pineapple popsicles, picnicked in the park, was surprised with a trip to Legoland (“good, great, grand wonderful,” he said when he was told of his surprise), stayed up late, watched movies, read lots of books, and of course played baseball — three 6-year-olds against two adults, and the 6-year-olds won.
They made up the rules as they went along, Jamie said, and then declared themselves the winners with high-fives. And Carter never wanted it to end. “You need to eat,” Jamie pleaded with him.
Then the family prepared to go through in-patient treatment again. Only this time their bright, energetic, life-loving little boy would not come home.
He died cancer-free. His death was caused by complications from the treatments, Jamie said.
Jamie chronicles her struggles on a private Facebook page with more than 1,600 members, Carter Strong Forever: Remembering Carter Ankeny. She counts each day she has lived without him and wonders how she will continue.
“We stay busy, we stay distracted, but then when things quiet down, when there’s not as much to ‘do,’ the memories take over, the grief stifling, and it gets hard to propel forward,” the family says on Facebook.
Said Tim: “Our biggest fear is that people will forget him.”