This is Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old girl from California, USA. In 2005, she was diagnosed with a rare malignancy known as vascular cancer. Since that day, Colby has been embarking a painful life with the malignancy slowly creeping into her.
Last April, she saw the preview for the movie "Up". Of course, "Up" is the current animation movie we have been greatly talking about - the awesomeness and touching of inner sense that the movie have provided. Since then, Colby was very eager to go and watch the movie.
Colby's mother, Lisa asked if she could hang on until the movie is released in June (In US, Up was released on June 5). Little Lisa replied, "I'm ready (to die), but I'm going to wait for the movie." It is apparent that Colby did not ask for anything but only the movie "Up" to come to the theater.
However, as the movie release was closing by, so did Colby's health as the condition began to deteriorate. Without anywhere to turn to, on June 4, Lisa asked a hospice company to bring her daughter, a wheelchair for little Colby to ride on to the movie theater. Alas, the wheelchair was not delivered. Colby was too sick to go to the theater.
Then, a family friend of Curtin, called both Pixar and Disney, which owns the animation to notify them about the dying child with her last wish for watching "Up". The Pixar officials were alerted and agreed to send someone to Colby's house the next day.
The next day, someone from Pixar arrived. Along with the employee, a DVD for private screening specially given to little Colby to watch, stuffed animals of characters and other movie memorabilia.
However, Colby was too sick that she could not open her eyes to watch the movie. She was in agony, in pain. Her mother had to describe to her the scenes from the movie. When Lisa asked if Colby enjoyed it, she nodded.
After the movie ended, the employee's eye was welled up and red - could not resisted the painful emotional to see how agony Colby was. But maybe it is a fate that Colby would not survived the night. Colby, with her parents nearby, died later that night.
Her mother said one of the memorabilia left by the Pixar employee was an "adventure book" based on a scrapbook that, in the movie, is kept by the wife of the main character. "I'll have to fill those adventures in for her," Lisa Curtin said of her daughter.
"When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie," Colby's mother told the Register. "I just know that word 'Up' and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven."
I hope after you read this story, you will start to appreciate our life and be it more meaningfully.
Dear Colby Curtin,
May God Bless You
References:
- http://gaigeredd.com/robotcarnage/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/b78520212z120090622094247000g4jiepgg1_lg.jpg
- http://images.ocregister.com/newsimages/2009/06/22/b78520212z120090622094247000g4jiepfr1_lg.jpg
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HjjdydyWZQ&NR=1
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/20/colby-curtin-california-g_n_218451.html
- http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/colby-curtin-pixar-grants-dying-girls-wish-see-movie
2 comments:
my friend who died of terminal brain cancer didn't have the chance to wait until she becomes the first actress to win an oscar award so my friends gave her an award on something else. she was documented and shown in new zealand.
RIP, Colby...
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