Mom recalls Taylor Swift’s call to grant daughter’s dying wish

Do the math – 3.5 billion requests for 2 million tickets?

Things are bound to get ugly.

But ugly is an understatement for the millions of fans who spent hours trying to snag presale tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour only to be frozen out, dumped or kicked to the back of the line, their only recourse to spend thousands more on resale sites.

On Friday, the 11-time Grammy winner spoke out about the “Blank Space” last week’s Live Nation/Ticketmaster debacle left them in.

“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” she posted to Instagram.

Among the fans taking her side in the nightmare are the Beazleys of Mount Greenwood.

Though Ed and Nadia Beazley did not get caught up in the purchasing frenzy for the June concerts in Chicago, they remain constant fans of the “kind and caring” pop star who took time out of her busy schedule to call their late daughter Emily just weeks before she died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2015.

The couple and their younger daughter Olivia, now a junior at Marist High School, are lifers in the fan department, Nadia said.

“Taylor Swift is a class act,” Nadia said, just hours after the singer released her statement. “Imagine breaking a website because you are so wanted. Her fans mean everything to her. She is how all celebrities should be.”

In her post-chaos statement, Swift said: “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.

“And to those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs.

“Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means.”

Nadia said she’s not sure how Emily, who was 12 when she passed, became such a big fan of Swift’s, embracing her hits “Shake It Off” and “Love Story.”

“She just was so into her, for so long. I think she thought Taylor was like every other girl, like someone who lived down the street,” Nadia said.

“Emily would close her eyes and just belt out those songs. She really felt it, you could just tell. She’d scrunch up her nose, squeeze her eyes,” Nadia said.

And now, Ed, Nadia and Olivia do the same to many of Swift’s newer songs. Their favorites are the 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” which Nadia said is a great motivator when cleaning the house.

And, of course, she said, “Love Story” will always have a special place in their hearts, just like it did in Emily’s.

It was in their oldest daughter’s waning weeks, when doctors were doing their best to keep the girl comfortable, that Swift’s publicists placed a call to now retired Chicago Police Det. Ed Beazley’s phone.

Ed was taking Emily to “comfort” radiation treatments whenever he could, while Nadia stayed home to collect Olivia from school.

The regular sessions had become a kind of father-daughter outing, after which the two would head to the mall for Cinnabons.

But when Emily took the phone that day, she asked if the singer would mind calling back a little later.

“She lied and said she was on her way into radiation, even though she was already done with it,” Nadia said. “She did that because she wanted Olivia and I to be there for the call. She wanted all of us to have that moment, that memory.”

And the already mega-popular Swift complied.

The family was in the car when the call came again. Through Bluetooth, all were able to listen.

Nadia said she watched her confident, smart-alecky preteen daughter melt during the conversation. But she managed to turn Swift’s attention on her little sister.

Swift seemed to know a lot about the family, Nadia recalled.

“She couldn’t have been nicer,” Nadia said. “And Emily was completely star struck.”

Nadia, who works for a South Holland law firm, said the family continues to listen to Swift’s music, because they enjoy it and because it makes them feel closer to Emily. They saw Swift when she came to Chicago on her last tour.

“We will never forget who she was to our family,” Nadia said. “She gave my daughter her dying wish. She was so kind. It is not surprising that she is selling out shows. We always thought she was a superstar.”

Ed now works as an investigator for Comcast. The Beazleys continue their mission to raise money for childhood cancer research and recently renewed funding for two cancer trials. And Olivia, a member of the National Honor Society, has her sights set on becoming a dentist or a pharmacist.

donnavickroy4@gmail.com

Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years.