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An angel to others in her hour of need

By Marty Clear
Published June 29, 2007

PLANT CITY - One night in October, little CarrieAnn Meadows told her mother that the room was shaking.

A few days later, a doctor told CarrieAnn's mother something that made her whole world shake.

CarrieAnn, who was 4 years old at the time, had a rare cancer called brain stem glioma. There was a tumor the size of a softball in her head.

Kathy Meadows, CarrieAnn's mother, said that when she was first told about the tumor, she wanted it cut out. But, she said, "They told me they couldn't because if they cut into that part of the brain stem she would maybe die and definitely be paralyzed."

Weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments followed. That helped for a while, but the cancer ultimately won out. CarrieAnn Meadows died on June 20. She had turned 5 just a couple of months earlier.

CarrieAnn never complained during her eight-month ordeal. In fact, it was often CarrieAnn who comforted other family members.

A few days after the diagnosis, Kathy was sitting, crying, in her daughter's hospital room.

"She said, 'Mommy, if you stop crying I'll tell you a secret, ' her mother recalled. "I said 'Okay, I'm done crying. What's the secret?' And she said, 'I can see angels.' "

CarrieAnn told her mother there was an angel by the window, another behind her bed and a third near the chair where her mother was sitting.

Kathy Meadows said her family isn't especially religious, and she was surprised to hear her daughter speak of angels. But in the next eight months, CarrieAnn said she saw the angels often and that they always comforted her. Whenever her mother started to cry, CarrieAnn would tell her the angels said everything would be all right.

Since October, Kathy and Joseph Meadows tried to give their daughters the best life they could.

"She did everything she wanted, " Kathy Meadows said. "We had to cram a whole childhood into eight months."

Meanwhile, they still had a family to raise.

"I had to keep remembering that I had four other daughters, " Kathy Meadows said. "Sometimes it wasn't easy."

CarrieAnn loved going to theme parks or simply cuddling with her mother while they watched a movie. But she dreamed of going to school, and that was one thing she never got to do. She would have started kindergarten in August, and the family had already made arrangements for her to have a class picture taken, even if she only made it to school for that one day.

In April, doctors told the Meadows family that there was nothing more they could do. The family brought CarrieAnn home. She continued to take her medication, but the cancer kept growing. Eventually, she stopped eating and couldn't even keep down the liquids from her feeding tubes.

She died at home with her grandmother sitting at her side and her parents sleeping nearby. Kathy Meadows thinks there were some angels in the room too.

"She died with a smile on her face, " she said.

In addition to her parents, CarrieAnn Meadows is survived by her sisters, JoAnna Meadows, Elizabeth Sperry, Rebecca Sperry and Taylor Sperry; and her grandparents.

[Last modified June 28, 2007, 07:52:43]