Customer Reviews

Notes Left Behind

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(4)
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Sadly, this is a true story of a sweet little girl, Elena Desserich, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the tender age of 5. Her parents, Brooke and Keith Desserich wanted to document the next 135 days for their younger daughter Grace as she was too young to really understand what was going on at the time. They published it on the web for their family to read but soon thousands of strangers were writing them, expressing their sympathy. Keith, the father, is a natural writer and did most of the chronicling. It is unfortunate that they had to learn some valuable life lessons in such a hard, cruel way but I am thankful that they have decided to share the wisdom they have gained with us : "We all waste our time and our lives when we should aspire to do more. What we all wouldn't do for just one more day when it comes to an end. The loss of a child represents every lesson we should learn and every moment we should cherish. But instead, we follow the foolish, ignore the clock and cry victim when consequences fall. Yet these children get no such warning. Elena was never foolish, never ignored the clock, and she is in batter for her life. She becomes a lesson for us all." It is no surprised that I shed many a tears reading this beautifully written journal. No parent should have to bear the pain that Elena's parents were forced to bear. We, not just parents, but as human beings, often take life for granted. Reading this book will help you to realize that every moment, even if you are having a bad day, is a GIFT and should be cherished. It will help you to slow down, look around, and if you have children, to see them, not as a duty, but as a gift to be cherished every single moment of the day.

I do want to address the "spiritual" aspect that another review mentioned. I, too, am a Christian but found it "truthful" and "honest" for Keith to admit that he does not and never will understand why this happened to his daughter. And I don't think it is fair of us, blessed with our healthy children, to tell him to go seek a spirtual answer. This is his story and as such, his feelings are valid and don't need to be further explained to us.

This book is written in the form of a diary alternating voices between a mother and a father as they progress through the treatment and ultimate loss of their daughter to an aggressive form of brain cancer.

I read this book in two days, it's very sad of course. I cried throughout the book. I felt like the parents made great efforts to include the exhaustion and the small details of how they kept their family together. They describe what it is like to make repeated trips to the hospital, the facilities and support they encountered as parents, the challenges of parenting their two girls during this soul-crushing time.

Why would you want to read this book? Well, hopefully you would only read it to help you remember how precious life is, or to get motivated to fight pediatric cancer or just to learn more about their charming daughters Elena and Gracie. This book can help you understand what a child suffering from cancer needs to live her life with dignity and a sense of being a child.

Brooke and Keith Desserich emphasize the shift in their awareness from the ordinary to the extraordinary in the days after the diagnosis. How reading the biggest bedtime story and playing with their children and enjoying every second moved to the forefront of their consciousness. So many parents are guilty of letting the drudgery of parenting interfere with the joy of childhood. This book will definitely help you keep your perspective where it should be, if you are lucky enough to be blessed with health and an intact family.

I think this was a wonderful book and I hope it brings a comfort to the Desserich's to know that I fell in love with both of their little girls too. I'm sorry for the loss of Elena. She deserved to live a full life and it sounds like she was brave and amazing.

When writing a book review, I often write about the strengths and weaknesses of the author's message; how the story is unraveled, how the events are depicted, and how neatly everything is tied together in the end. With Notes Left Behind, I don't feel as if I could review this book as if it were a book...I felt as if I had picked up someone's journal and sneaked a peek without permission. Some events were told without necessary background information. The story ended abruptly without any real epilogue. It was evident what was going to happen at the end of the story.

This is what made Notes Left Behind so brilliant. Keith Desserich's account of the final months of his daughter Elena's life was inspiring. It wasn't a book documenting the decline of Elena as much as it was a celebration of her life. Desserich's intimate writing will leave you with an appreciation for how little time even the healthiest of people have on this planet and how we need to enjoy our loved ones' company and make the most of each day. This is a tragic story but wonderfully written by parents that felt the need to share their daughter's inspiration, strength and love. No one can read this story and not be changed.

My heart goes out to the Desserich family - this is a book that every parent should read. Highly, highly recommended.

This book is both heart-breaking and inspirational. As I read about Elena, it was obvious that she was a special little person, creative and intelligent, who probably would have grown to make a tremendous contribution to society in adulthood, whether she became the teacher she dreamed of being or made another choice. There's a good chance that she is teaching now through the story of her too-short life, inspiring readers to live life to the fullest, never taking a moment for granted, especially reminding parents that childhood is fleeting at best, that there are no guarantees your children will outlive you.

Elena loved reading, writing and art and the book's title comes from the numerous "I love you" notes with heart drawings her parents found hidden throughout the house after she was gone. Both Elena's and little sister Gracie's personalities shine through the journal entries. It's apparent that Gracie's outgoing, spontaneous and bubbly personality was the perfect complement to the reserved and organized Elena's. Gracie was always ready to pull Elena into an adventure, even encouraging her to swim with the dolphins on her wish trip.

The authors hope Elena's story will encourage more cancer research, especially in rare pediatric cancers. I hope so, too.

I am going to admit at the outset that I skimmed this book. I did so with good reason: as the parent of a young child myself, I found its subject matter to be too painful to take in full dosage.

Elena Desserich was a kindergartner taken to the hospital for strep throat. While there, a routine MRI uncovered a much more severe problem---a malignant tumor encased within her brain stem. The ugly prognosis settled over her family suddenly confronted with the prospect of a fast and painful decline and swift death for their vivacious daughter. This book consists of excerpts from her parents' journal of this harrowing time as well as little notes Elena secreted all over their home for her family to find when she had passed on.

This unbearably sad account is lit by hope throughout---the hope Elena's parents held out for her recovery, the hope Elena has that her family will endure without her, the hope all hold for a better life beyond this valley of tears to which we poor children of Eve are confined. For me, the breaking point comes as the family attends a wedding and Keith Desserich dances with his critically-ill daughter for the only time and at the only wedding she will attend. Such love as this cuts to the quick.

This is a very difficult book to read. The pain is raw, the love profound. It is difficult because it is true and because we seek to protect ourselves from truth. The Desseriches suffer all of the pain and anxieties parents of stricken children endure---anger at the unjustness of a child suffering so, hope that she will be spared in the end, fear that she will not and they will not be able to soldier on, anxiety that they are not loving her enough and that they have not given their daughter her full lifetime measure of love in the time allowed them. A reader of any sensitivity will feel a crushing weight upon them.

It is a weight that must be borne. It is our duty to Elena Desserich and to her parents to bear it, for this little girl came to teach us this simple, stark truth: we are creatures destined to love and to die and time is drawing short---we must love all we can, while we can. It is the message the Ancient Mariner of Coleridge learned. It is the message the Apostles learned at the foot of the Cross. It is the message Ozymandias failed to learn before the sands swept over.

And like all truly useful education, this learnign comes at a steep price.

May God bless Keith and Brooke Desserich and thank God for Elena Desserich who in so short a time on this planet taught so profound a lesson in loving and living.

How do I do justice to the story of Elena's (and her family's) fight with a devastating brainstem tumor that has a 5% survival rate?

From the beginning, it was so heart-wrenching, the pictures, the notes. I cried from start to finish. I won't go into the details of the story as I know that's all readily available. So I'm just going to share how it affected me and as a result, will affect others in my life.

As a mom of a four year old girl myself, with beautiful brown hair just like Elena, it affected me so deeply and personally. I was there, with her parents, sobbing at every low, happily enjoying every high. Even though I knew what the outcome would be, my heart ached for a miracle. But there are very few miracles with DIPG. It's one of the cruelest cancers of them all and though rare (about 200 cases per year), it typically strikes young children who have about a year's life expectancy after diagnosis.

How was it life-changing? I've decided that I don't care how rare it is. It's a disease that needs to be fought tooth and nail and eradicated. I will help raise money towards that end.

On a personal level, thank you Elena, Dad, Mom & Gracie for sharing your intensely personal and painful story with us. Thank you for giving me the ability to look past all the unimportant daily trivia of life, and to take the time understand and truly enjoy what's important, your family.

Hug them and tell them you love them every day, and give them an extra squeeze for Elena.

Length:: 3:19 Mins

Yes, it is a sad book.

Here are my three reasons why you should read this book based on how I benefited from it:

1. It builds empathy. I felt like I was walking in the shoes of Keith and Booke Desserich while reading their journal/ book. Although I don't truly know what it must be like to lose a child, I felt connected to authors Keith and Brooke as I read their journal. I felt the sorrows as their daughters cancer progressed. I became tearful. I shared the joys when their daughter, Elana had good days.

2. It encouraged me to put my priorities straight. A book on death and dying helps a person to focus on what is really important in life.

3. It encouraged me to go out and do more good deeds in the world. I work in the human services profession as a recreational therapist. I also want to donate time or money to a good cause. Brooke and Ketih have started a charity. It is called The Cure Starts Now. I think I'm going to get involved some way.

Danny Pettry, Rec. Therapist
Author of Discover Hidden Secret Wisdom: A Recreational Therapist's System on How You Can Become Great at Anything (Volume 1)

This is not a polished book, nor should it be. It's a harrowing look at the life of a child from the time she is diagnosed with cancer of the brain stem until her life ends. It will bring you to tears, but not by being sentimental and full of miracles and bravery, but by telling how it really feels day to day to live with one of the more horrible kinds of cancer. Elena sounds like a remarkable child, but unlike many books like this, she is not portrayed as a saint, suffering all without complaint. What 6 year old would suffer this kind of pain and disability without complaint---indeed, what person of any age would?

We are thrown right into the story---I do wish there had been a bit more told about the day the diagnosis was received, as the book starts on the day after, when the treatment begins. But I think the writing made me feel the way Elena's parents feel and the way I am sure many parents dealing with this kind of horror would feel. Each day is a world unto itself---one day it can seem like all will be fine in the end, another day, far from it, and this preserved well in the journal form of this book.

There is much honesty here. I was struck by the description of a Christmas gift giveaway at the hospital, and the parents who coached their children to pick a big, expensive gift. Both Elena and her father were horrified by this, and overwhelmed in not totally a good way by all the presents, "Make-a-Wish" type offers and the like that came there way---as if someone getting cancer was balanced out by winning a macabre lottery.

It was very early in my reading of this book that I started thinking about my daughter. She is blessedly healthy and God willing, will be with me for a long, long time. She is autistic, and might never learn to read, to write, to live on her own, but she is with us, and it had been a while since I'd felt this much gratitude for that fact. I think anyone reading this book would feel the same way.

I work around special needs children every day. Terminal ones, and those that have a lifelong struggle with complex medical issues. The one thing that always amazes me is their resiliance and bravery and just how smart they are about the whole thing. What also amazes me is the family that rallies around them, circling the wagons, and never giving up hope for a miracle, a cure, or just a good day.

Notes Left Behind is a book that will take you into that exclusive world, one that you dont ever want to be privvy too, and shows you just what it is like to be a parent of a child who is given X amount of days to live, and the journey to the end of those days. Brooke and Keith Desserich have two daughters, Elena who is 5 and Grace who is 4. When Elena is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor after a routine hospital visit for "just" a sore throat, they decide to keep a journal for Gracie. This journal turned out to be so much more through encouragment from friends. Keith and Brooke hold nothing back from day one of diagnosis, to the last days. Its a heartbreaking look at this families worst moments, and some of their best. Elena, who is smart beyond her years, is a true spirit of bravery and joy and the resiliance of youth. Gracie is a scrapper and she is blessed with parents who held nothing back in this journal, she will one day appreciate it and thank them for having the gumption to write it.

There are pictures throughout,and again the Desseriches let us into their world where you have a beautiful normal child, and by the end of it all you have one devestated by steroids, chemo, and the pressure of the tumor on her brain. Its so painful a journey, yet so important to see.

I recommend this book to anyone who has had a family member lost to cancer, or anyone who needs a boost in spirit and a reminder to love your family everyday, kiss them, hug them, tickle them, and cherish every second.

Elena, thank you for your time on earth little one, thank you for gift to all of us, a gift of love. thank you.

I havent even finished the book yet. I started balling from the start. It just makes me soooo sad for all the babies with cancer its horrible and we need to find a cure. It is wonderful how Brooke and Keith has shared there beautiful daughters life to promote awareness. Everyone add them to your causes on facebook and donate! God Bless! and hug your babies mine was being hyper yesterday and i was very frustrated and then I remembered Elena!