Two-year-old Layla Grace Marsh, who won hearts internationally when her family started a blog and Twitter account to update friends and family, and raise awareness after she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma, has died.
Layla Grace, who began experiencing unexplained health problems at 16-months-old, went from being “a normal happy and healthy child to lethargic, in pain, and skin and bones in a matter of a week and a half.”
On starting the blog and the Twitter page, Layla’s father wrote:
“I guess you are probably wondering how we manage to pick ourselves off the floor long enough to sit down and blog. It doesn’t exactly work like that. We cry…. a lot. We’re not made of steel, we’re not half as strong as many have made us out to be. We simply hope and believe that God has the power to change anything, even this. We cry and pray, and yell and pray, and shake our fist at God, it’s ok though… he can take it. We initially started using twitter just to keep us sane. Most of our friends have (or have had) small children and when something happens to a small child everyone feels it. When we first found out something was wrong with Layla our phones were blowing up with text messages and questions from friends and quite frankly we just didn’t have the nerves left to respond to everyone. As we began to discover exactly how deep the rabbit hole went, we knew Layla was going to need prayer…. lots and lots of prayer. So twitter, and eventually this blog, became a way to stay constantly connected with the prayer warriors out there beating down the gates of heaven for precious little Layla. Over time it has become part therapy too. Ever been so troubled by something that you wanted to climb on your rooftop and scream at the top of your lungs? Welcome to laylagrace.org.”
On March 9, 2010, Layla Grace lost her 10 month battle with cancer. The last update on her Twitter page reads: “Layla went to play with the angels early this morning. Rest in peace precious Layla. 11/26/2007 – 3/9/2010.”
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Marsh family, including Layla’s sisters, Jenna, age 9, and Claire, age 3.
See tribute video which includes photos below: