“The six-year-old girl who wanted to leave love letters to her parents”

When 6-year-old Elena Desserich was diagnosed with brain cancer, she began hiding hundreds of little love notes around the house for her parents to find after she was gone. She was given 135 days to live. She lived 255 days, passing away in 2007. After her death, Elena’s parents, Brooke and Keith, found hundreds of notes from Elena hidden around the house — in between CD cases, between bookshelves, in dresser drawers, in backpacks. “It just felt like a little hug from her, like she was telling us she was looking over us”. Elena’s parents, Brooke and Keith Desserich, later published these notes in a book called Notes Left Behind to fund a non-profit organization The Cure Starts Now dedicated to fighting pediatric brain cancer