A tear-jerking moment was seized by a grief-stricken father on camera when he observed his 6-year-old son relief his 4-year-old daughter in her final moments as she gradually lost her fight to cancer.
In the emotional photograph taken by Matt Sooter, Jackson, his eldest son can be seen caressing his sister Adalynn’s hair as she holds on to her final moments of life, hours before she lastly yielded to her brain tumor.
As an emotional honour to his youngest, Matt wrote a Facebook post describing the distressing experience of having to watch his children say goodbye to each other. Matt wrote, “A little boy should not have to say goodbye to his partner in crime, his play mate, his best friend, his little sister. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. But this is the broken world we live in.”
Matt revealed that Adalynn’s health had worsened in the days before the picture was taken. Her father, fondly called his daughter Addy, wrote that her symptoms have developed fast over the past day and a half. Matt wrote that – “she woke up as her spunky playful self. While we still see short instances of our girl she can no longer eat or swallow without difficulty and she’s sleeping most of the time now and we’ve admitted her into inpatient care. Most likely she doesn’t have much time left.”
Matt advised their loved ones to say their final goodbyes as she didn’t have much time left. Jackson stayed by her sister’s side did not move and neither his parents made him to move. Hours after Matt shared the picture, Addy breathed her last.
Addy had been fighting her disease for 18 months, ever since doctors learned that she had a tumor growing on her brain stem. She was identified with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DPIG) and Jackson had been through her side through it all. Matt told about their poignant farewell and said that it was a sweet moment but not unforeseen. The father said that Jackson has always been great with her and took very good care of her. Matt said that Jackson is still a happy little boy but he misses her sister.
The broken-hearted father said that they miss her terribly but they all are also at peace knowing that they did the whole thing they could to try to help her and that she isn’t in pain any longer.
Addy had been given mere months to live after her grim diagnosis but she surpassed doctors’ hopes by holding on for almost a year and a half longer.
In fact, her parents were delighted when they found out that her tumor had started to contract. Regardless of her beating incredible odds, Matt was aware of the fact that Addy’s was a losing battle.
Matt said that while they were doing the whole lot they can to change the consequence they don’t believe to win this fight. They haven’t given up, but it seems they were losing the war. He revealed that the family had come to terms with the fact that they might lose their daughter.
