Grab a Kleenex

then click the links...


msnbc.com Video Player

6-year-old girl’s notes to family live on after her - TODAY: Book news

To say that “Notes Left Behind” is a book about a 6-year-old girl who died is accurate, but woefully inadequate. By filling her family’s house with hidden messages of love and hope, Elena Desserich continues to celebrate life long after she succumbed to pediatric brain cancer.

---

The family hopes they’ll never stop finding notes. But in case that happens, both Keith and Brooke have notes that Elena sealed in envelopes that the parents say they’ll never open.

“That’s our one insurance policy, that we’ll have that one note from her,” Brooke told Vieira. “I know there’s something very special in that note — but there’s some sort of comfort that it will never come to an end.”

 

I can't even click on that link Emma, because I already have tears in my eyes just reading what you wrote, and I know I'll lose it if I read the rest.

The death of a child has to be the worst pain imaginable.

 

It took me a while...

Should have titled it 'grab a box of kleenex'

 

Damn onions.

I saw this beforehand, very sad story. I don't have any children because I couldn't imagine how painful it would be for this to happen. However, they sure did have a great kid. Six years old and that caring? Despite her short time on Earth, they were certainly blessed.

Edit: And I think it's touching they won't open the last note. Least that way, they will always have one more message waiting and she'll always be apart of them.

 

This is why I absolutely positively refuse to work with children. It would tear me the hell up. When they announced we were getting pediatric oncology patients while the peds floor is overrun with flu kids, I made it crystal clear I would not take them.

Several years ago I cared for a boy with leukemia; he came to us for the next two years and we were all so damned close to him and his family. I was there the night he died. His father lay across his body sobbing for him to wake up and his mom passed out on the floor next to his bed in respiratory arrest. I coded her and took her to ICU, explaining to the receiving nurse she'd lost her only child an hour before.

Never again.

Pediatric nurses are God's angels on earth. And those who care for kids with cancer have a special place in Heaven reserved just for them. God bless them all.

 

More tears Emma. I agree with what you said 100%. Anyone who works with children in the hospital has my greatest respect. I know how easy it is to get attached to kids, , and then to have them die on you......and seeing the families pain....too much.

 

I'll be honest, you got more guts than me Emma. I could never work with children in a hospital. Just one death is a tragedy and having it happen constantly to the little ones whom you get close to would be heartbreaking.

 

I work adult oncology, but at my old hospital (where this happened) once in a great while we'd get older kids / teens.

I held it together until I got home that morning. Then I grabbed my daughter in a bear hug and wouldn't let go. She held me while I cried.