To the doctors, nurses, and hospital staff who cared for Bella,
Thank you for the care you gave my daughter and the compassion you showed me on February 22, 2025.
I wish that day had ended differently. I wish I could have brought Bella home, heard her voice again, and watched her return to the ordinary things she loved.
I remember tears. Some of you cried with me. I do not know every name or remember every word spoken, but I remember people who were visibly affected by the loss of a child they had only just met. In a moment when I could barely comprehend losing my little girl, you made room for a father whose world was falling apart.
I also want you to know something about the child you cared for. Bella loved her puppy, Stuffuls. She loved basketball, stories, music, and shared chocolate. She could turn her room into a classroom and insist that Babe follow her rules. She wanted to go to Paris. She had so much life ahead of her.
The hospital was only one moment in her story.
Her life was so much bigger.
Thank you for caring for Bella and for showing compassion to her father when I needed it most.
With gratitude, Dukens Pierre-Louis Bella’s father (“Babe”)