So Touching! Dying child wakes to say ‘I love you mommy’

Ruth Scully’s son Nolan, on February 4, 2017, lost his battle with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that affects soft tissue. In an ode to her son, Scully shared a photo collage on Facebook showing the cruel realities of childhood cancer.
Scully said during his struggle 4-year-old Nolan refused to leave her side, even lying on the bathroom floor when she showered.

The first picture shows Nolan on a bathmat. It was taken before he left for the hospital to start an aggressive chemotherapy regimen. The second picture, taken on the two-month anniversary of his death, shows the same bathmat, this time without Nolan.

“Now I’m the one terrified to shower,” Scully wrote in her post. “With nothing but an empty shower rug now where once a beautiful perfect little boy laid waiting for his Mommy.”

Nolan’s story has been shared over 620,000 times since posting the photo on April 4.

“Anybody with kids has seen their children laying on the floor before. I think that’s why the picture grabbed so many people, it’s real,” Scully told CNN. It took Scully two months until she was ready to write the post, but she felt she owed it to everyone who had kept up with Nolan’s story.

“He read every comment anyone would leave him. I felt like Nolan would have wanted to talk to his friends and tell them what happened, ” Scully said.

The post received a wave of support with 147,000 people commenting their own stories of brave children fighting like Nolan did.

“When it went viral, I couldn’t help but think that’s what he wanted,” Scully said.

Scully narrated memories of her son, she described him as a protector, always helping those around him. Even when he was in the hospital sick, he would leave his room to go and comfort other children who were scared or crying.

Now his story is helping parents across the world come to terms with problems in their own life.



“Maybe this was Nolan’s purpose, maybe he’s still helping people even in death,” Scully said.