Life makes no promises to be fair. If it did, Phil and Haylie Dowson would not find their youngest daughter Tayten confined to a hospital bed with a serious illness.

Since 2009, the down-to-earth couple from Kalgoorlie have achieved extraordinary feats, raising more than $100,000 for the Starlight Children’s Foundation through the Fremantle Dockers’ Starlight Purple Haze Game.

But, for everything they’ve done to help sick children, fate saw it fit to put their daughter in a position of need. In December 2012, Tayten, then five, had felt unwell. It was suspected she had a case of gastro, but on a family holiday to Tasmania in January 2013, she collapsed.

Tayten was flown to the closest paediatric emergency facilities in Adelaide. On 26 January, Australia Day and her sixth birthday, Tayten was diagnosed with an aggressive bowel disease called ulcerative colitis.

It’s meant constant travel between her home in Kalgoorlie and Perth for treatment.

In late 2013, Tayten was laying down in her hospital bed at PMH. Dozens of games and toys surrounded her, but none could pique her interest.

She hadn’t smiled in a very long time. Being stuck in isolation at Perth’s Princess Margaret Hospital had fractured her spirit.

Then, someone familiar with curly, blonde locks walked into her room. It was Fremantle Docker Chris Mayne, who Tayten had befriended two years earlier during the football club’s Community Camp visit to Kalgoorlie.

Haylie says Tayten became attached to Mayne as soon as she’d laid eyes on him back in 2011.

“She was besotted with his hair,” Haylie says. “She just loved him. She thought he was amazing.

“Chris just has a special knack with the kids and she bonded with him from that moment on.”

So when Mayne entered her hospital room two years later, Tayten put all her worries aside. Haylie says it was a moment the family would treasure forever.

“It was the first smile she’d had in such a long time being away from home and in hospital,” she says.

“Nothing could make her smile, but as soon as Chris walked through the door, she was just so star struck that he’d taken the time to come see her.”

Mayne had been on an end-of-season footy trip to Bali when he found out about Tayten’s condition. He wasted no time going to see his little friend.

“He’d literally gotten off the plane and he came in to see us at PMH,” Haylie says. “That was off his own back, it wasn’t club coordinated, he just said he wanted to come in and support us. That meant the world to us.”

He, too, will never forget the look on her face.

“I don’t know how she was that day, but to see her face light up, she went from laying down to pretty much sitting on the end of the bed ready to play, no matter how sick she was,” Mayne says.

The pair played games, and Mayne even drew Tayten a picture.

“He never looked at his watch once, he wasn’t worried where he had to get to next,” Haylie says. “It was gorgeous.”

The irony of needing Starlight’s assistance is not lost on Haylie.

“It’s something that has been so close to our heart,” she says. “That we would do so much and see the smiles and joy of the outcome of the money that’s raised, and all of a sudden, it’s us using the service.”

Haylie remembers vividly the day in the Adelaide clinic when Tayten was diagnosed.

“We were in the Starlight room with our sick child,” she says.

“I sunk into the chair and lost it.” But she says the family now sees their situation in a different light.

“We look at Starlight and think, after everything we’ve done, it’s now giving our family a big smile,” she says.

“We’re here getting the benefits of what it’s all about. It’s ironic. We often think it’s unfair, but Tayten shows us that it can be dealt with.”

Mayne is an ambassador for Starlight. He’s touched the lives of countless sick children. He attributes his passion for helping kids because of his own struggles after being born with a cleft palate.

“That’s the reason I signed up to be a Starlight ambassador,” he says.

“I feel that I have a connection with kids, I feel I’m a big kid myself.

“When we have footy clinics, I bond really well with kids.

“That’s something that I want to be remembered for as well, someone who gave back and had a bond with kids.”

Mayne and Tayten have now spent a lot of time together, catching up at every opportunity.

They’ve shared frozen yogurt at Tutti Frutti and just sat down together to talk about life. Tayten also emails Mayne often, although an ‘I love you’ message sent from her mother’s inbox did cause some confusion once.

“She’d send him emails after his games if he’d been hurt, asking him if he was ok,” Haylie says.

“He’d write back ‘I’m ok Tayten, but thanks for asking’.

“And whenever Tayten is feeling a bit flat, he allows me to contact him and he’d then give her a bit of a pep up.”

Tayten gave Mayne a friendship ball for Christmas. He, in return, drew her a picture with a short message on it. It’s her thoughtful nature and selflessness that really blows Mayne away.

“Haylie told me how Tayten has a spare moment of time and thinks, ‘what can I do for Chris?’”, Mayne says.

“Most people, when they have time, they normally think about themselves. ‘Why me, why this?’.

“Her first thought is ‘what can I do for Chris?’. It makes you a little bit emotional.”

Mayne says it’s given him enormous satisfaction to know he’s making such a profound impact on Tayten’s life.

“Every time I see her now she always has a massive smile on her face,” he says.

“To be able to bring that out of her, knowing the tough time she’s going through, it’s a proud moment for myself.”

So close has he become with the Dowsons, Mayne doesn’t see his time with Tayten as obligatory through his role as a Starlight ambassador and a community role model.

“I’ve found out that it’s not a case of giving back to the family, it’s like they are my family now,” he says.

“It’s about seeing little Tayten, someone that’s become part of my life, seeing that she’s ok.”

The feeling is mutual from the Dowsons. Haylie says Tayten adores Mayne so much, she had hoped to marry him one day. But given their age difference, Tayten has settled for Mayne to be her “best friend in the whole world”.

“She just loves him so much,” Haylie says.

“He’s the drop of medicine that she needed in the couple of years that she’s been chronically unwell.

“He can take away all of her pain and all of her fear. The only side effect is happiness. Every small child has a hero. Hers just happens to play for the Fremantle Dockers.”

This article was first published in the April edition of Docker Magazine. Click here to view the full publication.