A Tim Burton moment....

We are a Tim Burton lovin family.  Always have been, Always will be.

About a year and a half ago, my ten year old daughter sent Tim Burton productions in Hollywood her favorite 'tim burton inspired drawings'.  She's been drawing characters from his films ever since she can remember.  Well low and behold, yesterday morning, while she was at school,  (after a year and a half),  a letter finally arrived from his office.  Her father and I decided not to open it and pick her up from school with envelope in hand.  We knew she would scream with joy and probably cry for whatever was inside.

That afternoon, before heading off to pick her up, we heard that Burton was in town for the opening of the Tim Burton exhibit at the new TIFF building.  He would be signing autographs in the lobby from 4:00 until 5:30.  It was incredible enough that we had just received something from his office and that he was in town,  to add this moment to Jaidens day was too hard to resist.

So, 3:20 arrived and with opened envelope in hand  (it ended up being a personalized autograph picture from Tim Burton with a mention of how much he enjoyed her drawings), some flowers from my store and a screaming, completely out of control ten year old, we headed off in the rain, to the TIFF building to try and meet Tim Burton.

When we arrived, there had to have been hundreds ahead of us in line already.  We were told that we had to buy something recent of his in order for him to sign it, so I ran off to the gift shop inside the building while my daughter and hubby held our place in line.  The lobby was brilliant.  A large Tim Burton back drop...  projections on the wall... a massive blow up of Toxic Boy floating by the signing table... it looked magical.

However, the additional line up inside the lobby was disheartening and I heard from some security folks that he probably wouldn't get to us in the time alotted.  Rightly so, my husband suggested that we give up on getting his signature and that we just hang out in the dry, warm lobby to watch his arrival and the other fans gleefully getting whatever it was they brought or bought signed.  The perfect vantage point was actually on the second floor, overlooking the signing table and it treats...

When Burton arrived the crowd went wild and my wonderfilled girl began to cry uncontrollably.  The lovely woman beside us was really quite taken with her emotion and shared her own stories of hero's and inspirations.  My husband began to tell this woman the story of our daughter ambitiously sending off her drawings to Tim Burton a year and half ago and how, oddly, we received his response today.  today or all days.   She was taken by its coincidence.  Another woman beside her heard our family story and jumped into the conversation....  "my name is Leigha and I am in charge of Tim Burton's fan mail.  I apologize for our delays, we've been a bit behind lately, but I remember your daugher and her drawings and how special her letter was."  We all began to sob with joy.  "Tim rarely signs an autograph to someone personally, but I impressed upon him how beautiful your letter truly was and he was more than grateful."  Our daughter lost it as she answered...  "could you take him these flowers...  we've been waiting in line and we don't think we'll be able to get close enough" ....  " of course" Leigha said and off she went flowers in hand.

We watched her walk down the stairs, push past security, wait for an anxious fan in line to leave and immediatly brought them to Tim at the table... Photographer and another kind soul, Vivian Ho has sent me the pics, i'll try and post asap.

The long and short of it is, we have always taught our daughter that 'anything is possible'.  Take a chance, you never know what could happen.  She took a chance and something happened.  Sending him her drawings was a dream realized.  She did it because he moved her, changed her perspective on life, made her feel part of an imaginative world, his characters are a major part of her life, always will be.  He didn't have to send anything to her in return, but they did, and for that, as a mom, i'm grateful.  The fact that he got her flowers, that fact that we did end up getting back in line to meet him, made for a perfect day.  A memorable day.  A magical day.  

Thanks Tim, Thanks Leigha, Thank you Vivian and the lovely woman who asked for her story.

nite.