See that feisty look? See that strength? She that twinkle in the eye that tells you she will go toe-to-toe with you happily.
For the past five months, she had been battling leukemia.
I don't know her, but I know her.
That is to say, I have been FB friends with her dad, who I also don't know personally, for several years. In those years, he has posted seriously funny stories about Evie. With each one, I became more and more smitten with this girl.
She reminds me of our Evie with her quick wit and feisty spirit.
When they announced in June that she was about to embark on this fight with cancer, my heart sank.
But my instinct told me to hope. To believe. To fight with her.
When they started looking for an out of family marrow donor, I did all I could to get more people sign up for Be the Match. [If you haven't signed up, you should, someone's life could depend on it.]
And I continued to hope, to believe, to fight with her.
When they found a match, I celebrated. And hoped and believed.
I thought somewhere back in my mind, for her to need a bone marrow transplant, the cancer has to be really bad. It is not first line defense. It is brutal ... painful for the donor but truly brutal for the recipient.
When they started the process, I hoped and believed and feared.
I watched on FB with each day to see if the graft would take. And it did. And I was relieved.
And then the rest of her body began to die.
It really is the only way to say it. Some month and a half after the transplant, the infections had turned to sepsis and the kidneys and liver were nearly shut down.
I raged against this reality. I wanted it to not be true. I wanted a miracle.
And then she was gone.
Despite the enormous grief I have suffered in the past six years (how can it be six years?!), I cannot imagine the fresh hell her family endures right now. I know that the road of life without Evie will be long and treacherous.
On this Dia de los muertos, I am going to add Evie to the altar. And I will probably cry some more.
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