BEAVERCREEK — News Center 7 first introduced you to Kelsey Belcher and her family after they lost their apartment during the Memorial Day tornadoes in 2019.
The family had to use the money they had raised to help with Kelsey’s cancer treatment to replace essential items. Kelsey died Sunday after spending the last two years being in-and-out of the hospital.
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“Kelsey was a real blessing to this earth,” her brother Ryan told News Center 7′s Kayla Courvell. “Just a pure hearted soul...always so giving.”
Ryan said Kelsey held onto that pureness even as she lost her battle to leukemia earlier this week.
Kelsey had recently been sent home from the hospital, where Beavercreek Police held a parade to welcome her home, but within a few weeks she was hospitalized again.
“It’s just been one thing after another and this is just a dagger that digs a little bit on the hips and twists,” Ryan said.
After a procedure at a Columbus hospital did not improve her condition, the family made the decision to move her back home, to Dayton Children’s Hospital. That’s where the family was able to say their goodbyes as her condition quickly worsened.
“They had to make a decision as parents...they crawled into bed with her, one on each side, rubbed her head and her belly, laid in the bed with her and they pulled the plug,” Ryan said. “She went with both mom and dad laying next to her.”
Now, the family is doing everything they can to honor her last wishes, including a pink casket and pink granite headstone.
“We’re just trying to value and cherish her wishes as much as she wanted,” Ryan said.
Certainly not the wish any family want to fulfill for a vibrant 16-year-old girl, but one that fate forced the Belcher’s into doing.
“I think Kelsey reminded us all that its more to give more than you get,” Ryan said.
Kelsey’s goal in life was to be a mom one day and as her last act of kindness, her family will donate her organs, so another family can experience what she couldn’t.
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