February 16, 2023 - Seven Years Later

Seven.

There is that number again.

Avery’s favorite number, 7.

Avery, forever 7.

And today, 7 years since she took her last breath here on earth.

The constant replay of that morning on February 16th, 2016.

We knew her time with us was coming to a close.

We wanted her suffering, her pain to end, mercifully.

We never wanted to let her go.

She fought through it all morning, fought so hard that while in the middle of a seizure, where her eyes widened, she had so much strength in her arms during that seizure, that her newly turned 10-year old brother could barely keep her arm down.

That’s the kind of fight she had.

And then merely hours later, her fight here on earth was no more.

As the music played, “Walk By Faith,” by Jeremy Camp, of all songs, Avery took her last breath.

There isn’t a day that goes by that the morning of 2/16/16 doesn’t replay in our minds.

11:11 a.m., the moment her final breath was taken, before cancer was too big of a mountain to overcome and her sweet, vivacious life was cut short.

Sure, we’ve been able to move forward in many ways- most ways, even.

But move on?

Never.

Why would we move on? HOW do we move on?

We don’t. Move forward, yes. Move on? No.

Because moving on devalues how brave Avery was. How tough she was in the face of cancer. We won’t forget it. We won’t ignore it. We won’t pretend it didn’t happen.

She deserves to be thought of every single day of our life.

She fought.

Boy, did she fight.

Until the final hours that she could, she fought.

But as we’ve always, no, Avery didn’t lose her fight. She just ran out of time.

Today, we visited the cemetery, where Avery is laid to rest. It is hard to believe it has been nearly seven years since her body was lowered into a grave, her final resting place, between plots for mom and dad.

It’s hard to believe that in order to spend time with Avery, we have to drive to a cemetery to do so.

What the heck.

We drove from the cemetery to Avery’s school to drop her baby sister, a pre-schooler the day Avery died, a 5th grader now.

We took a picture of Avery’s Bench in front of her school, the school she stopped going to in the middle of first grade because she could no longer physically make it through the day.

Her classmates were in first grade with her when she died- now, they’re in 8th grade- and many of them were at Future Freshman Night the evening before. Where Avery SHOULD have been. But thanks to cancer, not in the cards.

We drove to Avery’s Playground at Lakeland Hills Park, her favorite park to play, where she could run around, laugh, play, smile, cry (I mean, don’t all kids cry at the park?) and just be a happy kid. The playground that, one week before her diagnosis, she climbed across the monkey bars.

Those monkey bars, that particular playground no longer stands, instead, a new playset, part of “Avery’s Playground” now stands, for kids for years to come, for families for years to come, to spend their time having fun, being carefree, getting the same joy of playing or watching their children play that we were fortunate enough to.

A week later, on June 30th, she was diagnosed with DIPG, a brain tumor that no operation could be done, told to make a lifetime of memories in the next six to nine months.

Seven years later, we know her legacy and her story are helping us fight back for her. For us. For others.

Her story continues to be shared around the country, around the world, in person, online, you name it.

Her tumor and cells from it, which we donated to research, is in hospitals around the world. It’s in hospitals nearby.

We’ve supported numerous projects around the world that are aimed to finding a cure for the monster that is DIPG.

Avery keeps making an impact.

Her big sister, Alex, now a freshman in college, wrote today something that resonated with us.

“I never feel like I have many words I can say to describe what it feels like to lose a sibling, a younger sister, no less, but I do know it’s something I would wish upon nobody. I should be helping Avery try out makeup, assisting her through boy drama at school, getting “embarrassed” by her making fun of me in front of my friends. But I can’t, and I still struggle to accept that, even now that we’re nearing the mark of her being gone longer than she was here.”- Alex Huffman, 2/16/23

Avery should be 14 years old, in her final year of middle school, high school just around the corner, before college and marriage and motherhood.

This was going to be the year we had a kid in elementary school (Addison in 5th grade), middle school (Avery in 8th grade), high school (Cade a junior) and college (Alex a freshman).

Instead, we watch as other families attend Future Freshman Night with their 8th graders, an empty, painful feeling for us.

Seven painful years of missing her, wishing she was here with us.

And still, seven beautiful years of her story impacting lives all over the place, her story inspiring others to join us in fighting back, to give and donate so doctors and researchers can find a cure for what took Avery’s life, but what couldn’t touch her spirit or her legacy.

So we keep fighting back, all the way until the end- EXACTLY like Avery did.

She never gave up, so how could we? Why would we?

We couldn’t. We wouldn’t.

We fight for her. We fight because of her. We fight to honor her.

And that fight includes the strength she showed the morning she passed away, where her strength, one big final show of it, couldn’t keep her down.

So we fight.

Just like Avery would. Just like Avery did.

Join us in that fight: https://averystrongdipg.org/donate

We miss her so, so much. But we are honored to call her our daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin and friend.

And inspiration.

Her brAvery pushes us daily and her story gets us out of bed each morning.

We’re not quitting, Avery, we’re still fighting. For other families, for other children.

For you.

#AveryStrong

Mom, Dad, Alex, Cade and Addison