Parents start charity golf tournament in daughter’s memory

By Jeremy Twitchell

Thursday, April 30, 2009 | 10:33 a.m.

Not 10 months ago, John and Mollie Stewart experienced a parent’s worst nightmare: sitting by the bedside of their 14-month-old daughter, Maggie, and watching as she succumbed to a fatal heart defect.

During the grieving process, the Henderson couple vowed to keep Maggie’s memory alive. To them, that meant much more than hanging pictures around the house and keeping her toys tucked away neatly in the corner of the family room. It meant finding a way for Maggie to live on.

In partnering with the Children’s Heart Foundation, a local non-profit that helps families with children with heart problems, they found it.

On May 24, the Stewarts and the foundation will host the inaugural We Heart Maggie Golf Tournament at the Black Mountain Golf and Country Club in Henderson, with all proceeds benefiting the Children’s Heart Foundation.

“I get a lot of comments from people that can’t believe we’re doing this so soon after Maggie’s death,” Mollie Stewart said. “For me, I had to do something. We wanted to keep Maggie in the forefront of people’s hearts and minds. To me, it feels good to talk about her. I feel like I owe it to her to do something positive in her name.”

Maggie Stewart had been born with minor heart problems, but doctors thought they had caught and fixed them all, her parents said. At 14 months, however, she weighed just 16 pounds — smaller than 97 percent of children her age — and doctors scheduled an exploratory procedure to see if there were any other problems.

During the procedure, Maggie’s blood began to clot and damaged her heart to the point that she would need a transplant. Her parents said the UCLA Medical Center accepted her for the operation, but a scan showed the blood clot had worked its way to her brain and caused severe damage. It was so severe that UCLA said it couldn’t justify the transplant operation.

After three days on life support, she was gone.

John Stewart said despite all her trials, all the procedures and the tests, Maggie was a joy to be around.

“It was amazing,” he said. “We tell you about all these problems, per se, but to be around her, you would never know it. Through all the hospitals, the doctor’s visits, the shots, the breathing treatments, she was as happy as could be.”

Mollie Stewart said Maggie had a way of looking at people with her head slightly tilted — a habit they eventually learned was a result of a minor eye problem, but which gave her the endearing quality of putting on a coy look.

She said she vividly remembers a family dinner just two days before Maggie’s final operation, when her daughter started to pout at the table. When her parents asked what was wrong, Maggie just laughed.

“Even when she was kind of pouty, she was just kidding,” Mollie Stewart said.

John Stewart said Maggie made fatherhood a joyous experience.

“I would always tell people that I was concerned about what kind of father I’d be, and she just erased all of those fears,” he said. “Some aspects of fatherhood come so easy, and some are kind of based on the child, I think. She made it so easy. She was playful, cheerful, always in a good mood.”

While the Stewarts were going through the ordeal, they had a chance meeting in a hospital waiting room with Jay and Lyn Acebo, who founded the Children’s Heart Foundation in 2001 after watching their daughter undergo several treatments for heart problems and finding that there was no organization to support families in their situation.

“Jay and I were so lucky to come into (the Stewarts’) lives at a time when they needed someone to come into their lives,” Lyn Acebo said. “That’s one of the reasons we started this foundation .We know how hard it is to be in that situation.”

When the Stewarts were ready, they joined the foundation’s board of directors and went straight to work. Acebo said having new members accomplish so much in so little time, almost entirely on their own, has been a boost to the foundation.

“We’re just really thankful that the Stewarts have done the things they have and that they’ve jumped right in,” she said. “We’re very blessed to have them.”

While taking on such a difficult project while still dealing with their grief has been a monumental task for the Stewarts, it has been a cathartic one as well.

“It definitely isn’t easy,” John Stewart said. “But it is rewarding. Indirectly, I guess it is a bit of therapy for us.”

The Stewarts have not set a specific fundraising goal for the tournament, he said. The only real goal is that it be the first of many.

The We Heart Maggie Golf Tournament is open to players of all skill levels. Entry fees run from $125 for a single player to $2,500 for a corporate package that includes eight golfers. All registrations come with a ticket to the awards banquet, and additional tickets can be purchased for $15 for adults and $10 for chilren.

The money raised will help the Children’s Heart Foundation put on an annual summer camp for children with heart problems, provide emotional and financial support for families with children undergoing heart treatment and raise awareness.

While adults are on the golf course, there will be a bounce house, crafts and games for the children.