Vara's Friends & Classmates

The impact of Vara’s diagnosis extends to children all over the country.  Not just her classmates in Ann Arbor, but cousins in Maryland, friends from San Diego, and other pediatric cancer warriors around the country.  

The ripple of fear that accompanies the uncertainty of Vara's health renders her classmates worried and filled with questions that no one can answer.  Yet the other 11 year olds at Summer's Knoll have kindly surrounded Vara with a contagious courage that only her peers could show.  They include Vara in school projects while she is in the hospital through visits, social media, and email.  They have decorated her home and hospitals rooms with banners, cards, and posters.  And, when Vara is well enough to attend school, they welcome her back enthusiastically, and fold her in as if her absence never occurred.  

While Vara is fortunate to have found an extraordinarily kind and supportive school community for fifth grade, the school has undoubtedly benefited more from the example Vara sets every day.  As Vara is forced to frequently miss school for scans, blood draws, examinations, and worst of all, overnight hospital visits, while at school she is miraculously able to subdue a deep and pervasive anxiety.  Instead, when Vara is at school, she calls upon an unending reserve of courage.  Through her intellect, humor, curiosity, each day Vara shows her classmates the true meaning of perseverance.

Overall her hometown support continues to grow and the friends and family she has surrounding her continue to make this journey one of love, laughter and strength.