Leland Shoemake was only six years old when a rare and aggressive brain infection stole his life. But before he passed, he left behind a message that would forever comfort his grieving parents.
Leland was a precocious child—a lover of history, weather reports, and anything that fed his curious mind. But in 2015, a sudden illness left doctors baffled. Tests revealed the unthinkable: Balamuthia mandrillaris, a deadly amoeba, had infected his brain.
Despite their desperate hopes, Leland lost his battle on September 25, 2015. His parents, Amber and Tim, were crushed. But when they returned home to collect his belongings, they found a note on their living room table—one Leland had written before his hospitalization.
“Stil with you. Thank you mom / thank you dad. Love.”
Next to it, a red heart with three precious words: mom, dad, love.
Amber later shared that Leland was always leaving them little notes, but this one—written in his innocent, misspelled handwriting—felt like a whisper from beyond. “We don’t know when he wrote it,” she said. “But it was so him.”
Though their grief remains, Leland’s note is a testament to the unbreakable bond between a child and his parents—one that not even death can sever.
