Day 157: Can the 6-Year-Old in Any of us Survive?

So after the last week of feeling sorry for myself because I am sick and unable to get off the couch I now not only have a cough, sore throat, running nose, congestion and a headache, but I have a serious case of shame. I just read a story about 6-year-old Elena Desserich who died from brain cancer. She lived 120 days longer than the 135 day diagnosis she was given just before her sixth birthday. During that time Elena wrote hundreds of love notes and hid them throughout her house for her parents to find. Her Mother says each time they find one it is like getting a hug from her.

Well hell, that kind of takes the wind out of my pity party sails. I have lived 31 years longer than Elena and have a nasty cold and headache, but have not done anything more ambitious than make a fruit smoothie to sooth my throat. A story like this is so uplifting, so positive, so heartwarming . . . how do you function in a world in which a spirit so strong was extinguished so young? Elena was a truly amazing little girl and it only makes me wonder what kind of woman she might have become. Could something that pure and strong and full of love even survived adolescence? Do we all start out like that only to have life beat it out of us?

I believe in natural selection, but when someone so full of all the qualities of good and righteousness loses her journey at such a young age it makes me wonder. Survival of the fittest yes, but fit for what? If the good and pure are dying before their 7^th birthdays then are those of us who survive fit only for a tougher world, a world where pure love and hope has no place? We all become somewhat jaded as we get older, but reading about Elena it makes me wonder what a world full of Elenas would be like. Is there even room for an Elena in the every day reality of a harsh world? I hope there is and I hope that same spirit and strength exists somewhere inside all of us, if just a little. Maybe in that way Elena will live on and every time one of us does something good just for the sake of goodness it will be like we are giving Elena a hug.

***Elena's parents have published her notes in a book to raise money for the charitable foundation they started for pediatric cancer. For more information, about Elena, the book or the charity use this link: http://www.notesleftbehind.com/