KSL News Story: Community steps up to help grieving mother

Here is the link to the online article:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=31473183&nid=148&title=community-steps-up-to-help-grieving-mother

Here is the text from the article:

PLEASANT GROVE — A community stepped up to help a mother grieving the loss of her daughter. Michalla Beardall, 19, lost her battle with leukemia earlier this summer.

“She had a love of life, had so much energy, artistic, talented,” said Terri Call, Michalla’s mother.

Michalla was diagnosed with leukemia the summer after she graduated from high school. She spent 18 months on and off at Primary Children’s Hospital where she underwent treatment. During her time at the hospital, she was a source of strength for other patients. Her mother told about a 5-year-old girl recently diagnosed with cancer.

“She started losing her hair, and Michalla was already bald, and showed her you can still be beautiful,” said Call.

Beardall drew a picture for the girl of Disney princesses without any hair. At night, Beardall would walk the halls and write notes to each of the children.

“I was just pleading with the Lord, 'How can you do this to all these little kids who need Michalla here?'” said Call.

Call prayed for a miracle, but the miracle she hoped for never came. On June 15, Beardall's year-and-a-half battle with leukemia ended.

“The whole week they just kept telling us she’s not going to get better, just say your goodbyes. But I don’t know how you ever say your goodbyes to a child until the minute she stops breathing, just to still think a miracle is going to happen,” said Call.

The family now has thousands of dollars in medical bills. Mary Lynn Boren, a neighbor, held a yard sale on Saturday to help cover the costs.

“When you really need something, people come,” said Boren.

She said three yards were full of donated items. In one day, she raised just over $6,000.

* Donations to help the Call family are being accepted at any Utah Community Credit Union under the name Michalla Beardall.

** Disclaimer: ksl.com has not verified the accuracy of the information provided with respect to the account nor does ksl.com assure that the monies deposited will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit or donation you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.

Here are the comments from the online article:

 whowhat
"She sounds like an amazing young woman! I am very sorry for the family's loss. May peace find her family."

aprilmit
"I have a 16 year old daughter that looks just as vibrant and alive as Michalla did. I can't imagine the loss for this family. So glad community is coming together to help. What a beautiful legacy of service and love she left for those kids at Primary Children's."

moldcore
"We just lost our 33 year old daughter and mother of 4 to Leukemia in July. Such a horrible disease. I feel for Michalla's family and the pain they must be going through."

foxgloves
"Heartbroken by your loss, but so uplifted by this story of the community coming to your aid. As a fellow mother of a medically complex child, my heart goes out to this beautiful family!"

Slcmac
"Heaven has a true angel !! What a beautiful soul !!!"

Teri B.
"Thank you all for your kind comments. It has been the love of family, friends, and even strangers that has gotten me through this tough time. Love, Teri (Michalla's mom)"

Birthday Party pictures

As I have been looking over the blog I realized I didn't post any pictures of Michalla's birthday party.

Lilly gave me an angel porcelain doll.  She didn't even know Michalla collected porcelain dolls when she was a little girl.

 Lilly wanted to put some Lillys on Michalla's grave site.  They are really cool.  They are solar and at night light up.

We all wrote messages on balloons to Michalla and let them go.

The funniest thing about this was that the balloons got caught in the tree.

Logan and Clint sang songs at the cemetery.  Logan sang Angel by Jack Johnson for Michalla.

Another Miracle for Michalla

 

 

 

 

Over the weekend there was a neighborhood yard sale fundraiser to raise money for Michalla's medical bills. Our sweetheart neighbor Mary Lynn Boren and her family headed it up.  We had no idea how successful it would be. The amount of community support was amazing.  We had channel 4 news come yesterday and today right after church we had KSL news show up at our house. 

 

We had been home from church for 10 minutes and Mary Lynn came over and said the news crew was on their way to interview me.  We had no time to clean the house or "get pretty" for the camera.  They filmed my messy kitchen and my tear streaked face.  It was already a tear filled day.  I had been fasting all day, which always makes me more emotional.  I also bore my testimony (tears) and right after me Logan bore his testimony (more tears).  He did such an awesome job and it was such a treat for a mother. He is turning into such a fine young man.  I love him so much. Anyway, I came home from church with a face that had been crying all day to a lady filming me for the news.

 

It didn't really matter anyway since I pretty much cried through the whole interview anyway. haha.  Oh well.  With any luck I will end up on the cutting room floor just like Faith did yesterday.

 Mary Lynn and Faith being interviewed.  Faith was super shy but it didn't matter.  They didn't make the air anyway.  The clip was only like 15 seconds long.

 

Just one week ago, Mary Lynn had so few donations that  she thought at best case we would raise a couple hundred dollars. Less than one week later and the result is thousands of dollars raised.  Mary Lynn hasn't given us a check yet as she wants it to be a surprise but it far exceeded our expectations.  Another miracle happened in the course of a week.  The miracle came in the form of Christ Like people from near and far that showered on the love once again. 

Loading up the truck to donate the items that didn't sell to charity. 

 

As I stepped back and looked at the dozens of people of this neighborhood working so hard at the end of an exhausting day and giving up one of the last sunny Saturdays of the year that they could have spent with their own families but instead were spending it with me and my family, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love. I know I say it all the time but PEOPLE ARE SO GOOD!  You all inspire me to want to be a better person, to serve and love more.

Thank you all again.

 

Feelin' the PG love!

I met with the owners of Alisha's cupcakes and Firebird pizza this afternoon.  They presented checks to me from their stores as well as Angie's Cravings.  I am in shock at the generosity of these store owners as well as the community.  All three stores donated 10% of their sales for a week plus there were donation jars set out for people to donate to.  I don't know what to say other than Thank you.  Words just don't seem sufficient to express how grateful (AND LOVED) I feel.  Like I expressed to them, I have shed a lot of tears over the last couple of weeks.  The silver lining is that while many of them have been over sadness, I have also shed many tears just from the love and kindness I have felt from so many of you in this community.

For example, when I was at UCCU depositing the checks this afternoon a woman I have never met came up to me with as I was leaving and gave me a hug and said she was sorry about my loss.  She said she was at a Young Single Adult activity and they showed Michalla's 'I am a Mormon' video and ate Alisha's cupcakes (to support the donations).  She wanted to tell me how much Michalla's life touched and influenced people for good. 

It made me feel so warm inside.  While it is hard to think about Michalla several times a day, it is also very healing to know that she didn't suffer in vain and that she touched so many people.

Thank you for the texts and messages of concern on Michalla's birthday.  Thanks to family and friends, it was a hard but very good day.  (Pictures coming later) It was nice to celebrate Michalla's life in happiness and smiles.

Love to you all. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHALLA!

 

 

Here are some birthday pictures of Michalla over the last few years.  Michalla LOVED her birthdays.  It was her favorite day of the year.  I spent a lot of the day crying yesterday and cried myself to sleep last night ...BUT today I am determined to celebrate! The sun is shining and it is going to be a good day! The Spanish Exchange Student teacher just showed up at the door with a card from David and Adrian and family in Spain.  What a nice birthday Surprise. We are having cake and ice cream and Mexican food (of course). Megan is coming down and friends are coming over to celebrate!  Happy Birthday Michalla. We love you.

 

20TH Birthday (Thanks Wendy and West for the decorations.)

14th Birthday Michalla loved to go to the temple and do baptisms right on her bday.

16th Birthday

9th Birthday

17th Birthday

14th Birthday

 

12th Birthday--Doing baptisms for the dead.

17th Birthday

17th Birthday. Michalla loves TGIFriday'sJack Daniel Chicken.

16th Birthday.  Michalla's favorite all time food is Mexican.

18th birthday.

13th Birthday

12th Birthday

 

Day Michalla was born 

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday.

Michalla hated us singing happy birthday to her.

5th Birthday

 4th birthday

5th Birthday Love that smile.

Michalla Beardall Funeral Video

Michalla's I'm a Mormon video

This was filmed after Michalla entered the hospital after the cancer came back.  The intent was to edit it with clips of her mission call and life and make a finalized version of I'm a Mormon that you see on mormon.org and facebook etc.  We didn't ever get around to putting that version together but here is the footage we got.

Thanks Clayboughs and Andrew for putting this together.