Heston Dunnam is obsessed with trains.
Standing exactly 3 feet tall, wearing a red-and-white-striped outfit complete with circular glasses with shaded lenses, the 4-year-old looks like a mini "Where’s Waldo." His left eye is concealed by a bright yellow bandage covered in red and blue train carts.
"Our house is covered in train tracks," his mother, Stephanie Dunnam, said. "Some parents have to worry about stepping on Legos. We have to worry about stepping on trains and tracks."
Dunnam and her family live in Hawthorne, near Highway 301. Trains pass by their house daily, one in front of the house, the other beside it.
"He just sits by the window and watches them," she said.
At 2, Heston was diagnosed with what is now referred to as broad spectrum autism, or Asperger’s Syndrome. Equally as deep as his love for trains is his fear of sound and loud noises.
Heston is so afraid of loud noises that he often puts on a pair of bright red, sound-proof headphones in the evening, to soften the noise of his father’s voice when he comes home from work.
"Sound is his true enemy," his mother, 42, said.
To help her son conquer his fear of sound, Dunnam devised a 30-day, 4,361-mile long family excursion spanning five states and six major railways starting Sept. 15. She advertised her plans for the project, a combination of a self-published book and a calendar of photographs, by creating a page on Kickstarter, an online funding platform that aims to "bring creative projects to life" through crowdfunding. The page is titled "The ‘Lil’ Engineer That Could," a homage to one of Heston’s favorite stories.
The project will only be funded if at least $15,000 is pledged by Aug. 19. It is an all-or-nothing deal. As of press time, the project has raised $453, with 12 days left to raise the rest.
If the full amount is not raised in time, then the family will have to go back to the drawing board.
Dunnam said she hopes to simultaneously capture her son’s love for trains and help him conquer his fear of loud noises with the trip but is afraid she won’t be around long enough to get it done.
She said she has terminal cancer.
"In 18 months, I probably won’t even be able to hold a camera," Dunnam said.
She said her ultimate goal is to convince her son to step foot on a train.
“It all comes back to the sound," she said. "If we can’t get him past the horn-tooting, then he won’t get on the train.”
Accompanying Heston and Dunnam on the trip, is her husband, Tracy Dunnam, and 19-year-old son, Jay Dunnam.
“This is a family affair,” she said.
The family will be camping throughout the month, instead of staying at hotels or with friends.
“This isn’t a whirlwind vacation; we’re not eating at every steakhouse we can find.”
Equally as invested in the trip, though not physically attending, is Dunnam’s mother, former K-8 teacher Patricia Scott, who will be monitoring the family’s blog and video blog posts and extracting information from them to begin writing the passages for the book.
“It’ll just flow because I believe in what she’s doing,” Scott said. “I told her if I won the lottery tonight, I’d be her sole benefactor.”
She calls her grandson a gift, looking at Heston with adoring eyes as he sits completely still, sound-proof headphones over his ears, on his mother’s lap.
“He makes every day brand new.”
As for her feelings toward her daughter and her project, Scott says they are “almost too much to put into words.”
“My heart is overflowing,” she said, closing her eyes. “She’s inspired so many; she just gives and gives, and that’s part of what, I think, has kept her on the planet.”
Dunnam’s husband, Tracy, a truck driver for food distributor Cheney Brothers, said his wife is simply trying to leave behind a legacy so her son knows she loved him. He refers to Heston as “little man.”
“There’s parts of your life you can’t get around,” Dunnam, 40, said about what stays on his mind for hours on the road. “You gotta be worried about your family.”
“I hope this will have a happy ending,” (Stephanie) Dunnam said with a sigh. “It only takes a dollar to keep me relevant (on Kickstarter), but a dollar in (13) days is not going to get me to where I need to be for this trip to happen.”
Meanwhile, Heston, occupied with the sounds of the street, put his hands over his ears.
“Momma, you still have to take me home,” he said, experiencing sensory overload. “Please, momma, please take me home.”
“Heston, do you want to ride a steamy or a diesel?” Dunnam asked her son, who was now calm.
“A diesel.”
“Would you like to ride on Thomas?” Dunnam asked, referring to Thomas the Train, one of Heston’s all-time favorite characters.
“Uh-huh,” he replied softly.
Dunnam stood up and reached for a sign made out of neon green poster board sitting against the wooden fence of Leonardo’s Pizza on University, where we had been sitting.
Spelled out in shiny multi-colored cut-out letters, the sign read “Hop on board an adventure..a dream…a book…” followed by the link for the Dunnam’s kickstarter page in permanent marker and a picture of a younger, giggling Heston in a train conductor’s outfit. On the back of the sign was a more detailed description of Dunnam’s project.
She put the sign over her head and onto her body, preparing to join the advertisers who often stand on the corner of West University Avenue and Southwest 13th Street to spin boards or hold up posters in protest.
“I will pound these pavements for the next (13) days to make this happen, even if it only means taking a part of the trip.”
“We didn’t want this ride,” Scott said, placing her grandson’s hand in her own, “but you can give up or give in, or you can choose to live.”
[A version of this story ran on page 10 on 8/7/2014 under the headline "Kickstarter intends to fund memory book"]
Stephanie Dunnam, 40, and her son, Heston Dunnam, 4, pose at Leonardo’s Pizza By the Slice on University Avenue on Tuesday.
