I recently found a You Tube video on a 6 year old girl, Elena Desserich, and learned of her nine month battle with cancer. This was truly an inspiring video from the Good Morning America show a few years ago and now a book called “Notes Left Behind.” She was able, in her short life, to spread a message of hope and healing. That message is what I’d like all of you to read, see on the video and understand.
After her diagnosis she created a To Do List with things on it like swimming with the dolphins and driving. As her disease progressed she could no longer speak so she started drawing. One of her drawings was hung in the Cincinnati Museum next to her favorite painter, Picasso. This was one of her lifelong dreams. Another was to dance with her father at her wedding. She dressed in a beautiful white dress and although it was not a real wedding, she did dance while her father held her in her arms. He says it was the best day of his life. For her sister, she wrote a kindergarten survival guide.
Her father kept an online journal for family members, never realizing that people from all over were reading it for inspiration to be better parents.
Elena had a secret though. She wrote hundreds of love notes to her family and hid them between pages of books, in cupboards, drawers and clothes to be discovered after she was gone. Discover it they did, each day finding a note, reminding them she was always looking down on them with love. They have no idea how many notes there were and still find them around.
Eventually, all the notes found were combined into a book called “Notes Left Behind,” so her little sister Grace would always remember her. The book is being sold to raise money to find a cure for cancer. Go to www.thecurestartsnow.org to read more about it and the foundation that was started.
As her mother said, “Elena was wise beyond her years. She always wanted to be a teacher, and as it turned out, the world became her classroom to teach valuable inspirational lessons of love to people all over the world.”
To see and hear this video, go to You Tube.com, plug in GMA Notes Left Behind and click on it when it comes up.
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