These days, Lisa Koziell-Betz is all about paying it forward.
When her daughter Morgan was battling cancer, the family received the trip of a lifetime to Discovery Cove in Orlando to swim with the dolphins through Make-A-Wish New Hampshire. To this day, Koziell-Betz doesn’t know how her daughter mustered the strength to get in the water with those two dolphins, but she did. And it was obvious to Koziell-Betz the kind of impact that trip had on Morgan and the family as they dealt with her diagnosis and treatment. The wish came less than a year and a half before Morgan passed away on Jan. 11, 2007 – less than a month shy of her 8th birthday. But it’s one of those memories she’ll always keep close to her.
After losing her youngest child, Koziell-Betz needed some time to heal. But she always knew if she could give back someday, she would. So a little more than five years after Morgan passed, Koziell-Betz signed up to be a wish granter for Make-A-Wish New Hampshire.
“I’m a gatherer of information and then relay that information,” Koziell-Betz said. “We try very hard to pin point the child’s heartfelt wish.”
She connected with Julie Baron, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish N.H., who just so happened to be one of Morgan’s wish granters. Over the last six-plus years, Koziell-Betz has worked with families all over the state to help make wishes for children with life threatening ailments a reality. She’s helped send kids (and their families) to Atlantis in the Bahamas, Disney and most recently Japan. Just this week she met with the family of a 3-year-old who wants to go to Disney. She even helped get a pug named Rex for a young boy who really wanted a new dog to call his own.
“I didn’t have a lot of money per se, but I did have the time, so I figured I’d volunteer,” Koziell-Betz said. “I’d give back in that way.”
As someone on the other side of the wish granting process, Koziell-Betz can relate to what the families are going through. She doesn’t typically bring up Morgan until after the wish is granted – if at all. She doesn’t want to take the focus away from the child’s wish, but at the same time it can be a nice way to connect with a family that is currently going through something that’s all too familiar for her.
Its been a little more than 12 years since Morgan passed away. She would have been 20 years old this past Tuesday, and Koziell-Betz often thinks about what her youngest child would be doing – college, work, friends. Her older brother Ryan just got his first job out of college as a biomedical engineer in Maryland, and moved into his first apartment on what would have been Morgan’s 20th birthday.
“She was a go getter,” Koziell-Betz said. “She wanted to be in the midst of everything; that’s just who she was.”
Some of Morgan’s friends work for Koziell-Betz through the Peterborough Recreation Department’s summer programs. Koziell-Betz has been with Peterborough Rec in many iterations since 2003. She started off as program coordinator, but resigned the following March after Morgan’s diagnosis. She went back part time as a secretary and administrative assistant, before returning to her intended job as program coordinator a little more than a decade ago.
“It’s right up my alley,” Koziell-Betz said. “I like the job, the people and you don’t get bored. It keeps you on your toes.”
She enjoys the busyness that comes with the job, the change of seasons and how no two days are ever the same. On Wednesdays, she brings PES students to Crotched Mountain for skiing, and on Thursdays, she takes a group from the school to Bowling Acres for Stroll and Bowl – along with anything else that crops up during a given day or week.
“I kind of have to be involved with a lot of everything,” Koziell-Betz said. “You have to be able to adapt and adjust, dive in and get stuff done.”
In between running programs and creating employee manuals, Koziell-Betz is always trying to make things better for the next round of programming. One of her greatest additions to the catalog has been pickleball, a sport that combines elements of badminton, tennis and table tennis geared toward the older population, which began almost four years ago and now runs six days a week.
“Pickleball was kind of my baby,” Koziell-Betz said. “And it just popped right away.”
What she really enjoys is watching the programs that she helps develop make an impact on someone’s life. Whether its an older adult who finds their competitive spirit with pickleball or that shy teenager who breaks out of their shell thanks to the summer teen challenge program.
Someday when she retires, she wants to see Spain and travel around the U.S. in a camper. Because one of the most important lessons she learned from Morgan was to enjoy the little moments.
“The world is not as it seems and you need to take time out and smell the roses,” Koziell-Betz said. “Listen to your soul a little bit more. She slowed me right down.”
And even though she misses Morgan every day, Koziell-Betz loves to talk about her only daughter. During the nice months, she goes over to the garden created in Morgan’s memory at Adams Playground. She watches the summer program kids eat their lunch in there and dance around. About two years ago she dug up a dogwood tree from the garden that wasn’t doing so well and planted it in her backyard.
“That’s my little piece of Morgan from the garden,” she said.
She’s a member of the Peterborough Lions Club, has been in a book group called The Bookends with a bunch of friends for more than 15 years and has been known to foster a dog or two in an emergency.
Some days are better than others. Tuesday was tough with it being Morgan’s birthday, because until you’ve lost a child, she said, it’s hard to explain what that experience is like and what kind of effect it has.
She loves talking about Morgan, especially when others bring her up. It lets Koziell-Betz know that people are still thinking about her daughter all these years later. And that’s just a testament to the little girl she raised, and the legacy she left behind.