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Sitting next to a pair of Utah Jazz players, 10-year-old Abraham Garcia clammed up.
"He doesn't even know what to say," a smiling Jasmine Garcia said of her basketball fanatic little boy. "He didn't want to sit too far from me because he was scared."
Maybe he felt a tad awkward because he is a Lakers fan, and Kobe Bryant is his favorite player. Maybe that's why he looked so timid next to the relatively towering forwards Gordon Hayward and Steve Novak. Because in almost every other moment in recent months, the West Valley City boy has been so brave.
The diagnosis came in August: Hodgkin's lymphoma, stage 3. The cancer was in his neck, his chest and his stomach.
"He keeps me up and keeps pushing me," Jasmine Garcia said.
Abraham has stayed positive and focused on his classwork at Farnsworth Elementary, where his mother said he has missed only days for treatment and scans. So with the holidays coming up, the mother wanted to treat her courageous son, but money has been tight.
"I had told my kids, you know, right now with the treatments and everything, it's going to be hard," she said. "We're going to have a bit of a tough Christmas but we're going to be together."
Abraham had only one material request: a turkey dinner.
He'll have that and more, thanks to two of his new favorite players.
Hayward and Novak recently treated five families from the Granite School District to a Christmas party complete with gifts and games at the Jazz's practice facility.
"I have a son that's their age right now," Novak said as children munched on pizza and waited for an appearance by Santa Claus, "so it's very real to me."
The event was one of several put on by the team and players this yule season.
Late last month, Jazz forward Trevor Booker took six families on a Thanksgiving shopping trip. Turkish big man Enes Kanter provided turkeys and basketball tickets to 50 families at The Road Home. A few weeks later, wearing a Santa hat and calling himself the "Kanter Claus," he treated 30 kids from Neighborhood House to a party at a Salt Lake City Build-A-Bear store.
For Hayward, there has come a realization that these events are not only opportunities but also responsibilities for someone with his means.
"When I was a rookie, there's no way I would have done this on my own," he said at the party his family and the Novaks put on. "I feel more like it's something that I need to do, and that I should do, and that I want to do."
The next day, at Primary Children's Hospital, Beckham Hendrix had a brush with fame and wanted to show it off.
"We watch the Jazz so we got to see him," the 4-year-old Kaysville boy said from the bed in his hospital room, where Hayward and point guard Trey Burke had just spent a few minutes.
So maybe Hayward, Burke and the rest of their teammates weren't always the biggest attraction as they went room to room at the hospital last week, taking time to pose for pictures, sign autographs and talk with families.
The moments, however, were appreciated by the families there.
"It means a lot," said Brad Hendrix, whose son had a tumor removed earlier in the week. "It's been a long couple days, especially for Mom and Dad seeing your son go through this. To see Bear [the Jazz mascot] and some of the players come in, and see him smile, it's awesome."
In another room rests 20-year-old Ryan Tomac of Tooele. Tomac's diagnosis came in July: chondroblastic osteosarcoma. He's been a frequenter of the hospital since, undergoing chemo to try to kill two cancerous spots on his lung. He's been on an operating table for 10 straight hours as doctors tried to cut the cancer out of his shoulder and rebuild part of his right arm.
So he welcomed the brief distraction and chance to talk hoops with Burke. He chuckled when Jazz coach Quin Snyder, who had a hip replacement last summer, mentioned that he, too, was part titanium now.
"It definitely brings our spirits up," Tomac said.
Back at the Christmas party, 10-year-old Abraham was all smiles when Santa appeared, bells jingling as he walked, and a bag in tote. When he unwrapped two small gifts, he finally talked with Novak and Hayward, excited to share his surprise presents. He didn't know that later that night, as he played games on the basketball court, his mother's car would quietly be loaded up with more packages, gift-wrapped items from a wish list he hadn't written.
"This was a blessing," his mother said. "They really made our Christmas."
Twitter: @tribjazz