When Kirsty Jayne Pearce was born—full term—on February 22, 1986, she weighed just three pounds, twelve ounces. A fighter, Kirsty survived, but she was destined to experience a lifetime of an array of medical issues until her untimely death when she was seventeen years old.

In this memoir, Kirsty’s father, Charles Pearce, tells her story of courage and stubbornness—of her birth in 1986; her baby, toddler, and adolescent years; her loving relationship with her mother, Peggy, father Charles, and her brother Tim; her unnecessary death in August of 2003; and the events that followed her passing. In Kirsty, Charles seeks justice for his daughter, who, he believes, died as a result of inadequate medical care.

Kirsty provides a loving remembrance of a girl who suffered much pain in her young life, but who was honest, funny, and brave. More than that, it shows how life can change drastically without warning.

I am writing this book in honour of my beautiful daughter Kirsty Jayne who was so cruelly taken from us on 29th August 2003 aged 17years and six months old in a manner that can only describe the care given to her in hospital as terribly amateurish from the medical point of view and complacency beyond belief, a total indictment of the medical services in my country.

When Kirsty died it was the most numbing affect that my body had ever felt, that numbness remains with me even today.

Like all children my precious little girl was honest, funny, and very brave, she suffered so much pain in her short life but never complained.

The most awful thing about Kirsty’s passing was the manner in which it occurred and the absolute complacency shown by the doctor responsible for her care.

Everyone knows that your child never dies before the parents, on this occasion this old myth was totally destroyed though it should never have happened.

It is so very easy to complain about medical care when something appears to have gone wrong and a life is lost particularly if it is that of a child and when the authorities disclaim any responsibility knowing full well that they are partly to blame then the pain of the loss is even greater.

When you lose a precious loved one it is quite normal to go into denial mode and even today I often tell Kirsty that what happened could not be and the obviously bad nightmare I was going through would come to an end, it never has.

When I say my prayers at night they are for all the young children that passed away as Kirsty did, I know that they are all together and that makes things a little easier.

Peggy and I love our daughter so deeply and miss her tremendously but the one consolation we have is that we will be together again some day, though when that day comes others will shed tears for us.

Love is beautiful, binding, and everlasting, and cannot be lived without.

This story attempts to show how vulnerable we all are and how much we depend on others as we attempt to wend our way through different existences, we cannot do it alone.

Charles Pearce grew up in the United Kingdom and served in the Royal Air Force for fifteen years. He worked as a registered nurse for forty years and is now retired. He and his wife, Peggy, have a son, Tim, and a daughter, Kirsty, who died at seventeen.