Meet Amanda
Amanda changed my life. She created within me a passion and commitment like no other. Amanda showed me what love really is, and how selfless one can be. Amanda fought for her life for almost 3 years and lost her battle to a blood disorder and lymphoma.
I’d like you to meet Amanda Jolynn Peebles– and allow me to share with you the girl who helped me commit my life to a cause far beyond anything I had ever known.
As I walked into the elevator at Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado the doors slowly closed and I pushed the number 7 button and the elevator started moving. I was nervous, I was excited, and I was humbled. I was with Stacy Moriarty (one of the first people I met at the hospital), who was taking me to meet Amanda Peebles, a young 11 year old girl who was on her 2nd bone marrow transplant and spending months in the hospital. As I signed in at the security desk, where I was to get an all-clear badge to enter the unit, I felt butterflies in my stomach, I must have known I was about to do something very profound. We got cleared to enter and walked down the bright cheerful hallway with wood look-alike flooring to find Amanda’s room. I’ve always been very nervous and humbled to walk into someone’s hospital room; especially a child’s. I find it to be a very personal, healing, and sometimes even a painful space. I stood a little outside the door letting Stacy take the lead, and I started to wonder if she would like me – what she would think of me, and if it would take some time for her to get comfortable meeting me. As I walked in Stacy proclaimed, “Amanda, I’d like you to meet Jeremy.” And that was it – I met her. She looked up at me, at the time she was arranging her toys at the hospital desk, and she just smiled and walked right up and gave me a hug. That was it, I fell in love…the love you feel for your sister, or even a daughter (I don’t have one so this was new to me) – this was a girl I was destined to meet.
At first, Amanda and I just met and I took her toys, books, and whatever else I could think of to help her hospital stays. At the time I was living in San Diego and would travel back to see her. Eventually we got closer and she started to share with me her worries, thoughts, and family stories. We took little trips out to the local recreation center pool, shopping trips at Toys R’ Us and would go eat or get her favorite drink at the gas station. I remember one time we convinced her mom to go with us to Wal-Mart and buy an outdoor pool that she could splash around in.
Amanda fought really hard for almost 3 years of her life. She knew what it was like to be a normal girl – go to school, make friends, and experience life. Then at the age of 10 she developed a blood disorder that turned her life and her family’s life up-side down. She began with a bone marrow transplant at Denver Children’s Hospital. After the first procedure failed, they did a second one (by that time she had about 6-8 months of solid hospital stays), which finally took. She experienced every side effect you could imagine – but this wouldn’t keep her down. She had a smile that could move mountains, and a positive attitude that made you wonder what powered her never-ending desire for fun.
I was fortunate to get to know her family really well. She desperately loved her older sister and younger brother and her mom lived in the hospital with her sleeping almost every night on the fold out chair. It was a story that I became intimately close to. I would often receive phone calls from her at odd hours of the morning, or during the day at work (which I would always try to answer which sometimes led to me bolting out of a meeting mid-thought).
Amanda’s health, in the year 2010, slowly started to get worse. She went through about 3 months of time where she was in/out of constant sleeping and in August of 2010, she left this earth. It was a peaceful ending and I was so fortunate to have gotten to spend time with her at the end, to sit in her intensive care room and watch her, talk to her, and express how much I loved her.
I tell her story to anyone that will listen – and the connection we shared was proof that no matter what happens, you can never give up on these children. They are the most compassionate, selfless, and happy kids you will ever meet. I continue to press forward everyday because I am forever thankful to have met her – to have been given the gift to share a small part of her life and journey and to be the thrilled recipient of so much love, many hugs, and thousands of smiles.
It’s time – it’s time to make a difference for these kids. It’s time to connect, collaborate, and coordinate support, research, and funding. Amanda didn’t make it, but her story is everlasting and I will share her energy with as many people as possible in hopes that more girls and boys like her, won’t have to suffer.
Thank you for reading this and getting to know my best friend Amanda. I am fortunate now to be close with her family, especially with Tionna her older sister. Together, we will remember her and live our lives in a way that will honor Amanda and make her memories live on.
