RIVER FALLS, Wis. — Think back to being 10 years old and what you might have asked for if granted a wish.
As far back as he can remember, Coby Clark dreamed of owning a yard service.
“We're doing five, four, today, I think,” Coby says as he loads his leaf blower and weed whips into the back of his mother’s SUV. “It's my favorite thing ever. I wouldn't trade it for anything.”
At age 5, for Christmas, Coby asked for a snow blower.
For his 7th birthday, he requested a leaf blower.
At 9, he opened the wrapping paper on a weed whacker.
But a year later, life took a whack at Coby.
“One day I was about to get in the shower, and I collapsed in my dad's arms. I had a seizure,” Coby explains.
The seizure followed several days of unexplained headaches.
Coby’s parents, James and Anna Clark, became increasingly concerned as their son was rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
“They did a CT scan right away and found a tumor in his brain,” Anna says.
Coby had cancer.
“I think the hardest thing as a parent is you want to take the pain away, but you can't do anything about it,” James says.
Sitting on the bed, at home in his bedroom, Coby drapes several loaded strands of beads over his head.
“These are called beads of courage,” he explains.
Beads of different colors, given to him during his treatment, represent things like needle pokes, mouth care, and the 76 days Coby spent in the hospital at Mayo Clinic and Children’s Minnesota.
Courage doesn’t begin to cover what Coby has been through the past year-and-a-half, including a stem cell transplant, chemotherapy, radiation and three brain surgeries.
“Most of it was just praying and knowing that God — he knows what he’s doing,” Coby says. “He’s not doing this, like, to be mean.”
When Coby lost his hair, roughly a hundred of his friends and family members shaved theirs, too.
His hockey teammates wore his number on their helmets.
When Coby was granted a Make-A-Wish, his request surprised none of them.
He didn't choose Disney World.
A video of the reveal, shot by Coby’s aunt, shows the moment Coby rounded the corner of his home. Shrieking, Coby ran to, and then hugged, his gift.
“A lawnmower,” Coby’s mother laughs. “Yep, he got a lawnmower.”
Not just a lawnmower, but a stand-on Toro commercial mower, with three blades, a 26-horsepower engine, and a 56-inch mowing deck.
“This is the one that I've dreamed of my whole life,” Coby says.
Weeks after the unveiling, Coby’s dad says there’s been not a hint of receiver’s remorse.
“He's praying for the grass to grow,” James laughs. “He wants the grass to grow so he can cut it more.”
Longtime customers like David Woeste didn't expect a commercial mower in their yards when they first hired a boy who only recently turned 11.
“More awesome is watching him, how he operates equipment, he looks like he was born on this stuff,” David says.
A retired physician, David has seen some things. However, “I've never seen a young man or boy, with that kind of determination.”
Take this June, when Coby broke his foot at church camp and was back on his mower — wearing a medical boot — the next day, zipping back and forth across his customer’s lawns.
“Everything he does he gives 110 percent to,” Coby’s mom says as she tries to hold back tears. “Sometimes I wish he'd slow down a little bit, but at the same time, it's that drive and passion that he has that keeps him going.”
Coby didn't need Disney for his wish-upon-a-star dream to come true — on the ground.
“This is a roller coaster in itself,” Coby says.
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