Brendan Kelly, a saintly teenager with Down Syndrome who died from leukaemia

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The Little Children Being Brought to Jesus
Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

A few weeks ago I came across an article in Crisis Magazine with the intriguing title Brendan Had Three Babies by Austin Ruse. (There is a delightful photo of Brendan there supplied by his family that I was unable to save.) Brendan Kelly, from Virginia, USA, was born with Down Syndrome and developed leukaemia at a young age. This eventually led to his death at the age of 16 in 2013. Here are the opening paragraphs of Austin Ruse's article.

Every year on the anniversary of his passing, Brendan Kelly gives a little gift to a woman who was close with him. It has never been great big things, but always a kind of wink that Brendan is there, and that he loves her. This past May was the 10th anniversary of this 16-year-old boy’s passing, a boy with Down syndrome and a lifelong struggle with leukemia that eventually took his life. 

This year she waited and waited for the little gift that she expected. At the last minute, she was invited to a fundraising dinner for a local school here in Northern Virginia, and she thought that was a lovely little present from Brendan. It was bigger than that, though. That night, she sat at the table and struck up a conversation with a couple sitting near her, Joe and Roxanne Miller. Over the course of the evening, they realized that their little girl, Megan, also with Down syndrome, also with leukemia, had been on the cancer ward with Brendan nearly 16 years ago, when she was 11 months old. Megan was one of “Brendan’s Babies.”

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