Forrest Hunter Renshaw is wearing a white Bedrock Police Department helmet and singing "Thank You, I Am a Life That Was Changed" in sweet, lilting tones. As he performs this favorite song from church -- all four verses -- he has the serene look of those lucky children who have no reason not to trust the world.
His is a 5-year-old's life about negotiating games with three sisters, about riding his bike, about playing guitar and harmonica, about dismantling anything that has screws and -- cross your fingers -- putting it back together.
It's a life with a large green lawn bordered by woods and his great-grandmother's rancher. It's filled with the inspiration of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church in Ellicott City, where his family travels from their home in Sykesville to worship three times a week.
And it also comes with an artificial left eye he's not supposed to play with.
"When people ask me, 'Why is your eye like that?' I tell them, 'I had cancer in my eye. And if they didn't take my eye out, I would have died,' " Forrest says.
About one in 15,000 children is born with retinoblastoma, which makes it the most common eye tumor found in infants, says Forrest's ophthalmologist and eye surgeon, Dr. Irene Maumenee. World renowned for her knowledge of genetic eye disorders, the 54-year-old physician is director of the Center for Hereditary Eye Disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital, which researches, diagnoses and treats inherited diseases of vision.
The primary symptom of retinoblastoma is a whitish reflection to light in the pupil of the infant's diseased eye; a healthy eye has a reddish reflection.
When Forrest was 8 weeks old, his mother, Mary Renshaw, noticed a milky blur, what she called a glint, in his left eye.
"After a week and a half of seeing this, I realized he always lay with his left side toward the floor. I got to thinking, 'I wonder if he can see out of his eye?' I put his head straight in the baby carrier and covered his right eye. He kept thrashing his head. When I covered his left eye, he did nothing."
And she called to her husband, "Henry, he can't see!"
Mrs. Renshaw's eye doctor referred her to a pediatric ophthalmologist, who took only a few minutes to reach a diagnosis.
"Her exact words were, 'He has retinoblastoma and that's cancer and it will kill the baby if you don't get it taken care of.' There was no beating around the bush. This lady told us straight out.
"I couldn't say anything," Mrs. Renshaw says, shivering. "This was my baby, my baby boy. This is not what I wanted to hear."
And after Forrest was referred to Dr. Maumenee, there was another tough word: enucleate. They were going to enucleate Forrest's eye. They were going to take out the baby's eye.
As Pentecostal Christians, Henry and Mary Renshaw have witnessed faith healings at their church and believe deeply in God's ability to cure the most deadly of diseases.
The Renshaws spent most of the weekend before surgery in church.
"We held them up in prayer and we prayed over them," recalls L. G. Smith, pastor of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church.
Right before the surgery, the Renshaws asked Dr. Maumenee to re-examine Forrest's eye. If there was any change, if there was any sign that God might be healing the eye, they wanted to cancel this surgery on their 14-pound baby.
"When Dr. Maumenee checked him, she said it had grown even larger," Mrs. Renshaw says. "She said the cancer had engulfed his eye. They had to take it out."
Since Forrest was an infant, a powerful combination of religious faith and high-tech medicine has defined his life. Together with his parents, his physician and his pastor have worked hard to provide Forrest with a healthy, golden childhood.
The boy makes regular trips to the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital, visits which he shrugs off as "OK." In the past five years, he has had three surgeries on his left eye. The first one removed the eye destroyed by retinoblastoma, the second and third were reconstructive.
And he and his family spend much of their free time in their church. Forrest performs in the children's choir and he sits on the platform with his father when Henry Renshaw plays the music for the older "young people" to sing.
"I don't think there's anything Forrest can't do," his mother says. "Henry takes him bike riding, although he's sometimes afraid he may lose control when he has to turn his shoulder to look left. He can swim underwater, although he can't swim on top too well yet. He loves any kind of paperwork, loves to color. They told us the only hindrance a one-eyed person would have is depth perception."
Forrest was "born again" last year.
"Not one time in my presence has he ever complained about his eye," says the Rev. Smith. "Forrest is just full of life. He's a little boy that really believes God.
"Some months ago, Forrest came to me and said, 'Brother Smith, I'd like to be baptized.' And I said, 'Baptized?' and he said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'All right son, we'll baptize you.' "
During the ceremony, "He gave a testimony. He thanked the Lord for saving him and for the opportunity to be baptized. He said he loved the Lord with all his heart. He wasn't afraid at all, although he was in close to four foot of water. He's not afraid of anything."
Mary Renshaw, 31, home schools her four children -- there's also 10-year-old Crystal Brook, 9-year-old Amber Rose and 4-year-old Misty Gale -- while Mr. Renshaw, 32, works in Giant Food Inc.'s warehouse in Jessup.
Mrs. Renshaw teaches her children from a Christian home instruction course because the family cannot afford to send them to a Christian school.
"I want to give them as much of a Christian education as possible," she says. "And I feel strongly that the Lord has put it upon me to teach my children at home. Maybe further down the road, He will provide money for a Christian school, or maybe He will lead us to public schools. But for now, this is what he wants me to do."
She also prays for guidance in raising her children.
Over the years, she has become used to the various routines of caring for a child with an artificial eye. Perhaps the worst day was when Forrest first came home from the hospital: The implant that had secured the plastic conformer (a clear shield put into the eye socket until an eye is fitted) shifted and the conformer fell out. It was up to her to put it back.
"For the first time, I saw this fleshy hollow spot. It was really freaky-looking, I couldn't handle looking at it," she remembers. "I lost it. I ran out on the porch and started to bawl. I wasn't looking at his eye, I was looking at his no-eye.
"Then I said to myself, 'This is downright stupid! I've got to deal with this.' So I came marching back in. I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry or get mad at somebody -- I didn't know what to do. But I knew I had to learn how to do it. I knew there would some time when this was going to be old stuff, when I'd flip the eye in, flip it out, nothing to it."
Forrest received his first artificial eye when he was about 6 months old. He has had six eyes so far. To keep pace with his growth, he will need a new eye every two years until he's 20, his mother says. He keeps his collection of artificial eyes in his top dresser drawer, right along with the clip-on bow ties he used to wear to church when he was a "little" boy.
Finding just the right artificial eye, it turns out, is quite a quest.
Forrest has curly, honey-colored hair and the achingly beautiful eyelashes so often reserved for little boys. His right eye is an unusual blue-gray color with a little brown around the pupil. It's a rich and subtle coloring that is difficult for his ocularist, the artisan who paints artificial eyes, to match.
His present artificial eye is a technological breakthrough: Attached to a piece of coral implanted into his eye socket -- a device that makes his artificial eye move almost as naturally as the "good" eye -- it is very lifelike.
Soon, Forrest must begin wearing protective eyeglasses -- good-looking ones, his mother insists -- to protect his sighted eye from the common accidents for which one-eyed children are at increased risk.
Forrest, Misty and their dad are waiting for Forrest's eye checkup at Hopkins in an examination room with green dinosaurs and pin wheels.
Forty percent of retinoblastoma cases are inherited. Because there is a risk of the same faulty gene leading to cancer in other parts of the body, all survivors require lifelong monitoring.
This time, Forrest is seen first by Dr. Maumenee's assistant, Dr. Robert Koenekoop, a visiting fellow from McGill University's School of Medicine in Montreal.
The doctor checks his vision. Forrest looks and looks at the chart and sees all the numbers -- fours and sevens and twos -- with his right eye.
"He's got excellent vision in that right eye," Dr. Koenekoop tells Mr. Renshaw.
He turns back to Forrest. "Can I take this out?" he asks. The boy nods. The doctor removes the artificial eye with a Q-tip, then tapes a patch on top of the empty socket.
"Don't take it off, OK?"
Another nod.
After Dr. Koenekoop puts a few drops in the right eye to dilate it, the family returns to its waiting-room mode. Dad becomes a jungle gym. Forrest hangs upside down on his father's arm, then Misty clamors for the similar favors. After hosting a few back-breaking tricks, Mr. Renshaw changes the game. He pretends he's the eye doctor and examines his son.
"Was that my last operation or will I have 500 more?" Forrest asks.
Next, Forrest pretends he's the doctor and examines little Misty.
"I think she needs surgery on her eyeballs," he announces.
Presently, Dr. Maumenee arrives. She is eminently memorable with her corona of copper-colored hair, her blue, blue eyes and a German accent, which seems exacting and soothing at the same time. She greets Forrest affectionately -- "you're such a good fellow" -- and looks into his dilated eye.
"The normal optic nerve is healthy," she reports. "The retina is normal. The right eye is fine."
Dr. Maumenee talks her observations into a tape recorder. "There's some discharge in the left orbit. Not excessive . . . good-looking optic nerve . . . no abnormalities seen."
What is the risk of Forrest getting cancer again after five cancer-free years?
"The DNA analysis is not clear," she says. "I think the right eye is clear, but the question of whether he's at risk for another malignancy has not been resolved. It's a good sign that he hasn't gotten another tumor."
She asks Mr. Renshaw about other family members who have had cancer and records his answers. She pats Forrest's knee.
The checkup is successful. By now, it seems routine for Forrest. But it's always an occasion for thanksgiving for Mr. and Mrs. Renshaw, who must acknowledge the possibility of future complications.
"I've really accepted whatever God has for us, even if it is to lose a child," Mr. Renshaw says. "I believe that God wants to do the very best for us. And even if I don't understand why losing a child would be the best for us, or best for the child, I still accept it.
"God is going to take care of us," he says. "And I thank God for medicine."
This fall, Forrest is riding his bike farther down the road and learning how to read with his Mom. He is dreaming of becoming a police officer when he grows up. And, from time to time, his mother may overhear him pray "Dear God, please don't let me get cancer in my other eye."
"Forrest is a bright, chipper child," Mary Renshaw says. "He's also sensitive. When our pastor dedicated him, he said, 'God has a special purpose for him.' And I believe he's got a special purpose for this child."
LINELL SMITH is a reporter for The Sun.