5 days ago
‘I will always be your little girl' Monroe County teen's farewell letters to family bring comfort
MONROE COUNTY, Tenn. (WATE) — The parents of a Monroe County teen who died last month found letters she had written to them before her death.
Jason and Crystal Taylor are taking it one day at a time, adjusting to life without their middle daughter. Kayla Couch died on May 22 after being diagnosed with brain cancer again. She was 16.
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'It's rough because everywhere I went, she was there,' Jason said. 'While I was hauling hay, she'd be practicing cheering. I'd be unloading hay, she'd be over in the field with the cows.'
Kayla was a cheerleader at Sequoyah High School and was a member of the Monroe County Rescue Squad. On Sunday, Jason received an unexpected Father's Day gift: notes that Kayla had written to her family before she died.
'Crystal charged her phone back,' he said. 'She wanted a video of Kayla saying 'I love you, Mom,' or anything. As she was going through it, she found them.'
In her note to her dad, Kayla said she is 'probably in heaven now,' and that she is thankful he met her mom.
'You stepped up to the plate and became my hero,' she wrote. 'In my eyes, you were nothing 'step,' you stepped up.'
Jason said the notes were extra reassurance. Kayla also left notes for her mom and sisters, calling her mom her 'best friend,' and telling her sisters she's watching over them.
'We went to Duke. Once we got back from that, is whenever she got sick the next morning,' Jason recalled. 'So with that, she had already had the notes written, she didn't say nothing about it.'
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Her memory is living on through her family, cheer team, and the entire community. Her dad plans to honor her with an old car he's fixing up at the Jeep Invasion in August.
'I told her before she got sick, if I can get those put together, I'm going to paint it pink, put 'KaylaStrong' on it, and drive it to the Jeep fest,' he said.
Jason also said Kayla was working to collect pop tabs from aluminum cans for the Ronald McDonald House. She had a goal of collecting 1 million tabs. Her family plans to complete her goal. For those who want to donate tabs, the Chamber of Commerce in Madisonville is accepting them.
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