Parents will go to any lengths to protect their children. When parents Keith and Brooke Desserich received the news that their daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor, they knew she would not live for long.
Elena was a healthy little girl and showed no sign of illness until she almost turned six in 2006. Her parents noticed her speech was slurred and she started having difficulties walking. When they took her to the pediatrician, an MRI was requested.
Turned out, Elena had Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), which is an incurable brain tumor. Young Elena had less than five months to live. However, she lived for nine months.
Six-year-old Elena watched her father write down notes about her and her sister Grace as she underwent treatment. Grace was three at that time, and her father wanted her to remember the times she spent with her elder sister. Unknown to him, Elena drew some inspiration from him.
What the young girl did in her final days is beautiful and heartbreaking. Elena wrote some notes appreciating her parents and sister Grace.
A few days after Elena’s death, her family started finding secret notes around their home.
It didn’t take long before they started finding notes all over the place — in books, socks, closets, winter clothes, CD covers and even bags of Christmas decorations.
No note was the same. On some, Elena wrote “I love you,” and on others, she drew hearts and flowers.
“She was a child who was wise beyond her years. I hate to think she knew she was dying but I think she did,” Elena’s father, Keith, told the Daily Mail
Two years after Elena’s death, her parents decided to publish a book of her notes as a tribute to their daughter and as a way for Gracie to remember her big sister.
The book contains all of Elena’s notes except two. Her parents both carry one unopened note each wherever they go.
“It’s our way of saving the last note,” Brooke told the Daily Mail
Watch the video below to learn of Elena’s legacy
It must have been so hard for these parents to lose their daughter at such a young age.
Even though Elena isn’t here today, she won’t be forgotten.
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