Feature Story

Sunshine and Smiles

Every morning, the sunshine seeps through the cracks of your bedroom window, acting as an alarm clock because the room becomes too bright for you to roll over the other direction and fall back asleep.

These rays of beaming light play a seemingly annoying role in many lives because they are the cue of the beginning of a long, tedious day of work and errands. When the sunshine dims, it is the ending of another day, and the night takes over. It is a never-ending cycle.

Not in Norman, Okla.

To Oklahoma resident Santiago Restrepo, the sunshine is a daily reminder of his lost son.

Javier Restrepo died July 31, 2009, after battling cancer for two years. He was four years old.

It has been almost eight months since the passing of Javier, but to Restrepo and his wife, Heidi, it still feels like a fresh wound to the heart.

Yet, the constant support from the community reminds the Restrepos the role their four-year-old son played in many lives.

Restrepo will enter his seventh season in the fall as the head coach of the University of Oklahoma’s volleyball team. Because he was born and raised in Colombia, his family in the United States does not consist of many relatives but primarily of his players and coaching staff at the university.

“Losing him [Javier] was losing everything, but knowing I have nine daughters helps ease a little,” he says. “These girls do everything they can to remind me there are many reasons left to smile.”

This year, the volleyball program organized a “Pledge for the Cure” event to raise money for the Jimmy Everest Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. The event was designed to gain donations by fans at the volleyball match September 30, 2009, against the University of Nebraska. The match also aired live on ESPNU. Player statistics of the OU volleyball team determined the extent of donations.

Jan. 7, 2010, the Children's Hospital at the OU Medical Center announced the total contributions of the pledge event. Sooner fans contributed more than ten thousand dollars to the cause, which was much more than the Restrepos planned to raise.

Heidi Restrepo has never felt so relieved about what she says has been a definite catastrophic event in her life.

“I never thought I would ever start to feel the slightest bit better about this,” she said as she wiped a tear from her eye with a blanket her mother had sewn when Javier was born. “But seeing how many people have done what they can to help really makes me see light at the end of the tunnel.”

And the support does not stop within the Oklahoma community.

Mrs. Restrepo is also satisfied with the charity of other schools. Baylor University’s volleyball team wrote the Restrepos a letter regarding the situation.

One of the team members, Briana Tolbert, was especially emotional about the suffering within the Big 12 conference family.

“I’ve always been the type of person who hurts when other people hurt, so I told my teammates that we should write them a letter about how we would love to help if there was anything we could do,” Tolbert said.

When their letter arrived in the OU volleyball office's mailbox, the coaching staff was highly appreciative of the outside support and willingness to spread the word of Javier.

The Restrepos hope to relive their last days with Javier by repeating them with their other son, Diego.

In 2009, elite players of several Oklahoma athletics teams witnessed the heart-melting smile of little “Javi.” The family took him to each court and field while they watched him kick a goal, make a basket, and score a touchdown.

Junior baseball player Garrett Buechele is yet to forget the day the four-member family arrived at the field.

He thinks that bringing Diego back to the field to do what his younger brother did is a good way of bringing him back.

“It was really hard to see the family doing what they were doing, but this time it would be different,” he says.

Buechele, as well as many other athletes, hopes to witness this event again.

The Restrepo family thanks everyone for their help and feels that time will continue to be the best healer.

Maybe the sunlight creeping in your room really has a meaning and is not just a substitute for a ringing clock. It may be the start of a monotonous day, but try thinking of it in the eyes of someone else. The Restrepos admire the sunlight, for with it they feel the warmth of the smile of their forever young, Javier Restrepo.