Even celebrities need their moms to tie their shoelaces every now and then.
So as Kielan Lynch readied for a shopping spree at Bellingham's Best Buy with an untied lace Tuesday, Feb. 12, his mother, Angelique, swooped in to help him out.
The shopping spree was part of Kielan's Make-A-Wish day, in which the foundation created a celebrity experience for the 13-year-old Vista Middle School student who was diagnosed with liver cancer last spring.
After an ice cream social when school got out, Kielan was whisked off to Best Buy and Target in a Ford Excursion stretch limousine, surrounded by a police escort. He arrived at Best Buy to a red carpet and a crowd of about 75 screaming fans, yelling his name and hoisting signs that read "Team Kielan" and "Kielan is the man."
Dressed in a tuxedo with a cane and sunglasses, he signed autographs for his fans. One person shouted to her friend, "He signed my shirt!" while another squealed, "He signed my poster!"
"I feel awesome, like everybody loves me," Kielan said. "They sounded so real, like they actually adore me like a star."
One little girl even asked for a hug.
"Hugging that little girl just made me feel really happy," he said.
The look of excitement on people's faces as the limo pulled up was fantastic, said Kielan's friend Austin Oswald, who rode with him to the stores.
"He's my best friend, and I wanted to be with him for his big day," Austin said. "He seems pretty happy right now, with all the people rooting for him and the limo and the cops."
Several Best Buy employees wore T-shirts bedazzled with Kielan's name, and he got to pick up a flat-screen TV, a laptop and a gaming system with games.
The experience was surreal, his mom said, but also a reminder of everything that Kielan has been through in the past year. Kielan was diagnosed with liver cancer at the end of April 2012, and within days he had surgery to remove a grapefruit-sized tumor and part of his liver. He has to get CT scans every three months to make sure the cancer isn't returning.
She was thankful to Make-A-Wish for putting together such a fun day for him. Kielan was so excited that he barely slept the night before, she said.
"It's amazing," she said. "It's so much more than I even imagined."
After he was shopped out for electronics, he gave his mom a big hug and told her he loved her. Then it was back to the limo and off to Target, where he planned to stock up on clothes and shoes.
"It's been perfect," Kielan said. "It couldn't have been better."
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