Dear Kycie.

Dear readers: This past weekend we lost 5 year old Kycie. The doctors misdiagnosed her Type 1 as a virus. As a result she suffered massive brain damage. For the past 6 months she has brought our community together, and opened countless hearts and minds to understanding Type 1 Diabetes. Link to her story HERE.

Dear Kycie:

Thank you.

Thank you for accepting the short, but vital assignment of coming to this earth to change lives. 

Thank you for enduring to the end so nobly. For being a delicate warrior in a world that doesn’t always appreciate such.

Thank you for taking one for the team. Other lives have been saved. Other lives have been changed. Minds and hearts were opened, and that’s on you sweet girl.

Thank you for your smile and your grit. For showing us what fighting like a girl really looks like.

If anyone deserves respite from the storm it is you dear one. If anyone deserves paradise….you.

Thank you to your parents for their optimism and their faith. I have also lost a cherished part of my family, I know that optimism and faith soothes the sting of despair. Trusting in a Heavenly Father and His plan is not easy in the process, but makes things better in the end.

This Earth is a terrible, wonderful, amazing place to be. It is worth the trip, if only for a short time.

Thank you for showing us that over and over again.

Thank you and your family for putting your faces on the Internet, and on posters, and on TV…accepting the position as “poster child” for a misunderstood disease that still is grossly misrepresented by others who are ill-informed.

Your story will prompt physicians to take a second look. Second looks can be a game changer.

If my son’s pediatrician hadn’t have taken that second look, J wouldn’t be here with me either.  He almost returned to heaven as you did. I don’t know why he was spared and you were not, but that is not for us to know I suppose. Maybe from a heavenly perspective, you were the one that was spared.

Kycie, your courage and tenacity are inspirational. You have planted seeds that will only flourish in the fertile soil of advocacy; Advocacy that you have sparked in the hearts of thousands.

One finger prick. One, small, one dollar test can save lives. When before stubborn men and woman would not listen, now…they hear. Families will go home with their newly diagnosed babies tonight because of you.

Rest, dear girl. Rest from your journey. And if you see Ryan, hug his neck for me, will you?

All my love and adoration,