We never know when someone's going to get one of these illnesses or sicknesses or come down with trials in life. Take as much time as you possibly can to spend with your family. You never know when something is going to happen. – Willy
SALT LAKE CITY — About six years ago, the man in the Utah Jazz Bear costume remembers showing up to a soccer game dressed only as a regular father, while his 11-year-old daughter ran up and down the soccer field in her red jersey.
"I remember sitting there watching, just going, 'I am so lucky,'" said the man who agreed to speak about his experiences as Bear, but asked to remain anonymous. "When I showed up at that field, I remember standing there looking out and I was just happy to have a healthy, active child."
As he watched, other parents became increasingly vocal about the score. They were yelling at the players, complaining that the team was losing.
He had a different perspective than many of the parents. He had just arrived at the soccer game after a foundation event where he had visited with a 10-year-old boy who had a terminal brain tumor.
"Unless you see it, a lot of parents forget about it," he said. "They worry about, to me, the non-important things in life."
Bear is a member of the Mascot Miracles Foundation, a group of mascots dedicated to participating in events that put smiles on the faces of children with life-threatening, and serious health conditions. Those behind the costumes say it's a big privilege, but oftentimes difficult to be with these children who are sometimes on their deathbeds.
"It's a tough, tough thing, but it's a good thing, too," Bear said. "You try to give these kids a smile on their face when there really isn't much to smile about."
The mascot group is led by Felix, the mascot of the Utah Falconz. Other members include the Lil Bear with the Jazz, Willy and Lil Willy from Utah Valley University, Grizbee from the Utah Grizzlies, Bumble from the Salt Lake Bees and Swoop from the University of Utah. Cosmo from Brigham Young University is also active in the group's efforts, as well as Max from Max Cares for Kids, Rocky Moose, Kodiak Wolf, T-Bone and many others.
"I had no idea there were so many little children that had cancer when I started this," said Felix, who has been a mascot for 20 years. "My eyes have been opened in a big way. There is just a huge, huge amount of children out there that are battling all kinds of health situations."
Some of the costumes allow the men inside to see very well, like Willy the Wolverine.
"I can have an eye-to-eye connection with a kid and see that face just bloom right up and light right up," he said.
It's that eye contact — those faces and memories — that encourage him to continue making appearances for the nonprofit group.
"We get a one-on-one action with the kid that (most) people outside of a costume can't get," he said.
"To them we're just a reality of make-believe pets," Felix said. "As soon as you get with these kids, they forget what they're going through, adopt you as their own personal character. Their pet is what they would call you."
Reality freezes for a while and the families go to another place. They go to a world without cancer, disease or death.
"You can see it in any one of their faces. There's no talking about what's going on, there's no talking about what's coming. It's all about right now," Felix said.
The mascots, or "the Zoo" as they're called, attend the events knowing they may not see these children tomorrow.
"Every single child we come in contact with, you look at them and you go, 'This may be the one and only time you see this child. You better make the best of it,'" Felix said.
And while it is a weight temporarily lifted for these children and their family, that burden often falls to the mascots.
Bear remembers visiting another boy who only had a few weeks left to live.
"It was one of those things where I'm looking around and I could look into the parents' eyes and it was almost like they were like, 'Do something,'" he recalled. "What do you do?"
While Bear never speaks inside the suit, on that day he did. He and the boy chatted with each other. It was another child, he said, who was hard to leave.
"You start to become attached and you feel so bad that you want to, as much as you could, just kind of touch the boy and say, 'Here, please be better,'" Bear said. "But you can't. You just do what you can, and you just gotta kind of leave it at that."
The mascots say they know they're temporarily lifting spirits, but they always wish they could do more.
"That was hard for me to live with when I lost the first couple," Felix said. "That hit me hard. You get attached to these kids. It was a hard reality check, it really was."
Bear said the reality is in the back of his mind. When he leaves, a piece of his heart stays with these children. He knows eventually he'll get the call.
"And that's the hard part," he said of the last 21 years as Bear.
Willy said it's difficult to be in the costume and try to act happy when there are silent tears rolling down his cheeks. The emotions inside the costume have a wide range for each mascot.
"Your emotions can go anywhere from laughing with them, to crying and them not even knowing you're crying inside your suit," Bear said.
Felix has his breakdowns.
"Luckily I get to do it behind the mask and I get to do it away from everybody," he said.
But that also makes it difficult.
"Everybody else can kind of console each other as they're sitting there with these parents and we kind of have to do it on our own," Felix said.
There are lots of tears for the mascots. Some have been pallbearers at children's' funerals, others have participated in motorcycle escorts.
"You're tearing up being the mask, but on the flip side it is like, 'Wow, did I really make that big of an impact on this child's life?'" Felix said. "We're really nothing special. We're just characters and we're just trying to do a little bit of good."
Their experiences have made them better people and better family men.
"I know it's on my shoulders and I know I have to live with it, but … honestly it's helped me become a better person at home. You forget about the small things," Felix said.
"We never know when someone's going to get one of these illnesses or sicknesses or come down with trials in life," Willy said. "Take as much time as you possibly can to spend with your family. You never know when something is going to happen.
Felix said he goes home and looks at his children in a different way. He hugs them more often.
"There is no promise given to us how long we have," he said.
Deep down, Bear said he hopes such experiences make him a more humble person.
"I hope by doing this it makes me realize the importance of every moment that you get to have, because those moments sometimes are far and few between," he said. "And sometimes it might be the only moment that some people get with you."
Email: ebench@deseretnews.com