ONTARIO — Elliana Nelson couldn’t contain her excitement as she learned the Make-A-Wish Foundation was sending her to Hawaii Wednesday to meet her favorite Disney princess Moana.
Two other princesses came to share the news and Moana — though she couldn’t attend in person — sent a video to Elliana to announce the departure date. Upon learning the news Monday night, the 6-year-old girl darted two tables away at Applebee’s to take a running start into her mother Samantha’s arms.
“(It was) kind of surreal honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her that happy,” said Samantha Nelson.
Elliana has a rare disease. One so uncommon that her parents don’t know it’s name or anyone else in in the same situation.
“She has bits and pieces of different diseases and symptoms, but none of it is any indicator of what she has,” Elliana’s father, Matt Nelson said. “It’s hard to explain to people because there isn’t an explanation. There isn’t a name or anything to what she has. We just know that it’s rare.”
She might be one of maybe six people in the world with the disease, her mother told Richland Source in August, after a picture of Elliana won the “Can you Picture Ontario?” contest. Her name and symptoms exist in a database, so one day, doctors might be able to identify the disease.
For now, the Nelsons do the best they can. Elliana attends one-on-one classes four days a week at the Richland School of Academic Arts. Still, she’s had pneumonia twice and more than a dozen other illnesses since the beginning of the school year.
“When she was first born, she was in the hospital for six months … and from there she’s always seemed to have something,” Matt Nelson said.
Yet he finds it “a little weird” to have his daughter’s wish granted.
“I’m not one who likes all eyes on me, but her, she loves it,” he said, pointing to Elliana, who was dancing to “You’re Welcome” from Moana.
She had no problem keeping up with the princesses of A Royal Princess Party and even sang “How Far I’ll Go” with them.
Two volunteers of the Make A Wish Foundation, Karyn Wade and Kristen Durkin, met Elliana several months ago to ask her about her wish. They spent a few hours with the girl, but quickly realized she loved Moana.
“We said, ‘Do you know where Moana lives?’ And she said, ‘Hawaii,’” Durkin recalled. ‘And we said, ‘Would you want to go where Moana lives?’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’”
Elliana saw Moana directly after it was released. It was her first time going to a movie theater.
“We tried to keep her out of the public, and I think, it came out in the summer and germs weren’t running rampant, so I said, OK, we’re going to try it. We’re going to slap on a mask, and go,” Samantha Nelson said. “And she loved it. She thought it was great.
“As soon as she got home, she wanted to listen to all the songs.”
Elliana has them all memorized. And because she listens to the soundtrack so frequently, the rest of her family, including her 11-year-old twin brothers Cameron and Caleb, know all the lyrics, too.
While in Hawaii, Elliana, her parents and brothers will stay at a waterfront hotel. They will go on a dinner cruise, or what they’re calling a “voyage like Moana’s” and participate in a luau.
Make A Wish also presented Elliana with a luggage set, a Moana doll and other Disney-related items.
“(I’m) just overwhelmed with happiness and feeling very humbled and blessed to have her and to have all of this for her,” Samantha Nelson said.
