Poem by late Indiana woman is now a song on a gospel album

BEDFORD, Ind. (AP) - Maybe it was the way people look at the person with a terminal illness. The people who mean well, but their expressions turn sad when finding out the young girl before them has brain cancer.

Whatever it was, it's why Haley Jenkins laughed and smiled despite knowing her life would end too soon.

Valerie Byers knew her daughter wasn't always as happy as she projected. Jenkins was diagnosed with stage III astrocytoma in February 2011. She then developed a second tumor, a glioblastoma. Her prognosis for beating the disease was never good, but she overcame all the odds and squeezed every drop of life out of the next almost seven years before discontinuing treatments.

Jenkins got to graduate from Bedford North Lawrence in 2011 and was chosen prom queen. She participated in the local Relay for Life and childhood cancer awareness events.

'œYou would see her and think she smiled all the time. The truth is, she didn't want people to feel sorry for her, but she spent a lot of nights crying,'ť Byers said. 'œShe was in a lot of pain but didn't want to take pain pills because she didn't want to sleep, didn't want to miss anything.'ť

What Byers didn't know is how her daughter dealt with her pain. Soon after Jenkins died on Dec. 14, 2017, at age 24, Byers was looking through her daughter's computer for photos to display at her funeral.

She came upon something titled, 'œTake Me As I Am.'ť It was a poem Jenkins had written, but had never shared with her mom. Jenkins was creative; she loved to scrapbook and sing, but she had never mentioned writing any poetry.

As Byers read the words, she was moved by their honesty and her daughter's peace with her diagnosis.

Take Me As I Am

So take me as I am

With all my flaws and troubles

Help me get through this mess

Please don't let me stumble

Cause I'm yours, all yours, Oh Lord

Yeah I'm yours, all yours, Oh Lord

The words also comforted Byers, and she knew then she wanted other people to hear her daughter's words, her prayer for love and acceptance.

'œI started reading it and I wanted to hear it with music,'ť Byers said. 'œI gave it to a friend of ours, and on Haley's birthday he sang her exact words and played it at church, but I wanted to hear it in a female voice.'ť

Byers reached out to a friend of hers, singer Lori Anderson, a Lawrence County native who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, to ask what she thought of the poem.

Anderson loved it and asked permission to let a songwriter and producer adapt the poem to music.

The two women have known each other since junior high, and Anderson knew about Jenkins' cancer battle.

Recently, Anderson traveled to Bedford and let Byers hear a rough mix of the recording.

'œWe both cried through the whole song,'ť she said.

By phone from her home in Nashville, Anderson said she approached a couple of songwriters to take a look at the poem. Knowing songwriters might make changes, Anderson checked with Valerie to get her OK. Anderson wasn't clicking with the attempts and eventually took it to a songwriter who is also her producer.

'œWe were able to leave almost every word Haley put in it,'ť she said.

The song was recorded at Curtis Pruett's Burning Bush Productions in Bloomington. It was recorded as a gospel song and Jenkins is listed as songwriter.

An original plan to include various instruments was scrapped after Anderson felt the song needed a different approach.

'œThe day I went in to record it, as I was practicing it, I tried to put myself in that room and all I could see was a little girl and her guitar,'ť Anderson said. 'œI don't know if Haley played guitar, but that was my mental image, so we scratched all the instruments we had planned and just went with guitar.'ť

The pared down song captures Anderson's vision of a girl talking to God. The song, she said, is a perfect addition to the gospel album she had been working on.

Recording the song brought out a range of emotions for Anderson.

'œI have a daughter Haley's age, and my daughter knew Haley. The first two times I couldn't get through it without bawling,'ť she said. 'œThe song is very emotional because I know Valerie and you think, '~What if that was my daughter?' I'm not sure I'll ever be able to perform it live.'ť

Although Byers' goal was just to hear her daughter's poem adapted to music, because Anderson is using it on her album, 'œThis is GOD's Country,'ť the song will earn money.

Byers arranged for any revenue to go to an organization that will help others. Those wanting to pre-order can contact Anderson or Byers on social media.

'œThat's what Haley would want,'ť her mother said.

The group is MotorCychos, and any money from the song will be placed in a Hope for Haley fund to benefit others.

As far as she can tell, 'œTake Me As I Am'ť is the only poem her daughter wrote, Byers said. The mother and daughter were extremely close, so Byers sometimes wonders why Jenkins kept the poem to herself, but she isn't all that surprised.

'œHaley was very protective over me. She was the sick one and the one that needed taken care of, but she protected me from how she felt,'ť Byers said. 'œShe always wanted everyone to think she was OK.

'œShe was my best friend; we had so much fun together. She had a bucket list and we accomplished quite a bit of it. There are a couple of things on her bucket list that I've thought about doing but I don't know that I'm brave enough.'ť

In her final months, Jenkins was able to meet a half sister she had never met; she made videos to wish a happy birthday to friends and family after she passed, recording the last one on Dec. 9, 2017.

She pre-planned her funeral, right down to the blue casket adorned with brown polka dots made by friends with a Cricut.

Taking her daughter to the funeral home to make arrangements was one of the hardest days, Byers recalled, but she did it because it was important to Jenkins.

'œShe said to me, '~Mom, I don't want you to do this by yourself,' that's how she was, always thinking of others,'ť she said.

Listening to the song now and hearing it sung by Anderson, Byers couldn't be more pleased.

'œLori couldn't have nailed it anymore than she did,'ť she said.

As heartbreaking as it was to lose her daughter, Byers said wonderful people came into her life. Doctors, nurses, the group Angels of Gabriel and other parents of children with cancer walked the journey with her.

Byers recalled one of her daughter's doctors at IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

'œHe was very dry and very serious, and I don't think he got her with the way she was with it, always laughing. He was her doctor for five years. The day she chose to stop treatment, we were sitting there and he told us chemo had stopped working and he gave us options and time to think about it. I told him, '~She knows what she wants but she won't say it because she's worried about me,' and he asked her what she wanted and she started bawling.'ť

Two months later, she was gone.

'œWhen you see your child suffering and you know that's not what they want, the hardest thing is to sit with them and pray for God to take them, and you feel guilty for that. Other parents need someone to be there with them. Don't feel guilty for not wanting your child to suffer.'ť

Byers is grateful her daughter's friends have stayed close to her and said she loves hearing from them 'œbecause her friends connect me back to her.'ť

She also has the golden doodle, Daisy, that Jenkins got as a puppy.

'œDaisy is that living breathing thing she loved and is my connection to Haley.'ť

__

Source: The Times-Mail