My Story

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1997 to 2007
aged: 9
From: San Jose, California

Leya was born on December 14th, 1997, in San Jose, California. She started
her preschool at Monarch Elementary school. She was a 2nd grader when she became an angel.

Leya’s positive attitude inspires everyone around her. Her enthusiasm
encourages people to think about what is more important in life. She moves and
touches everyone’s heart with her hope and gladness. She wins everyone’s heart
by her politeness. She is good at making friends wherever she goes. Her
teachers adore her and her peers love her company.

Leya was passionate about swimming, drawing and coloring. She finds pleasure
in going to school and spending time with her classmates and teachers. She
enjoys “quality time” with her mom, listening to stories. Sometimes they both get
creative and wander in the imaginary world exploring new places and meeting
new characters. Leya always look forward to going to Baskin Robbins and Taco
Bell with daddy. She never fails to save some portion of the food for her big
sister.

Leya’s journey so far had been remarkable until May 25th, 2006 when she was
diagnosed with Brain Stem Glioma (Diffuse Pontine Glioma) by doctors at Kaiser
Permanente medical center. Her family and friends were devastated with this
news. Everyone, but Leya, felt weak and hopeless. Her faith, courage and love
never failed even once. Her care and concern for others touched everybody, as
she always did. She did not forget to surprise her dad with a Happy Father’s Day
card. Despite her recent double vision, she spent hours in the back yard secretly
working on a beautiful card for her mom’s birthday… a true reflection of her
caring personality!

Life is meant to be filled with sweet, soul-satisfying blessings and miracles. Let
this story remind us of our life’s sweetness and inspire others to pray, dream and
hope.

Our lovely little girl Leya(also known as Minu or Meenakshi) left this world at 7:38 pm on Thu, 06/14/2007. She left behind a void that can never be filled and we are saddened in an unimaginable way. Although she has always been an especially, especially, mild-mannered child she displayed a fighting spirit over the past three days. Her uncle(Dr Laji) got on a plane from Canberra at short notice and arrived home around 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon. She passed away in her parents arms, and she had her close family tending to her. We are forever proud of her struggle over the past 3 days; hanging in there until her uncle(who made three trips and several weeks tending to her since her diagnosis shortly over an year ago on 05/25/2006) got to her bedside. She also made sure that her elder sister(Pooja whom she affectionately addresses as 'chechi') had no distractions whatsoever for her finals which ended last week. What a selfless and brave soul she was!


And a cure was not to be
So he put His arms around her
And whispered, "Come with Me"
With tearful eyes we watched her suffer
And saw her fade away,
Although we loved her dearly
We could not make her stay.
A golden heart stopped beating
Hard working hands to rest,
God broke our hearts to prove to us
He only takes the best


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