Alyssa Tyner was born on a pretty morning on June 19, 2014. We were so happy and blessed to finally have our family complete. Alyssa was the little sister to Leilani, who felt proud to be the big loving sister.

During Alyssa's first 6 months, everything was normal. We could even say a lot of things were taken for granted without knowing what was coming ahead for us.

We had concerns about Alyssa's development at that time but still thought everything would be OK since we had experience with special needs parenting with our older daughter, so we made some calls to get Alyssa immediately into Early intervention and get most out of it for her.

Like most parents, we were in a journey where we didn't have the answers and our concerns were growing. We saw a few different types of specialists to look for an answer but all we got was "Some kids develop slower than others," or a few false diagnoses that made us sad but still nothing compared for what was coming.

Alyssa's last trips were in 2015 to Mexico to celebrate her first birthday, and to Door County Wisconsin in September for her sister's fourth birthday.

On October 21, 2015 we finally had the results from a genetic doctor. We were nervous but hoped that Alyssa would be OK.

It wasn't the case, Alyssa wasn't going to be OK. The doctor's words were like a stab in our hearts and in a few minutes our world crashed, hearing that our baby girl had a rare genetic disease called Infantile Tay-Sachs. We never heard of it before and there is no cure. To learn about all the complications of the disease and that she would die before her 5th birthday was a lot to take in for a one hour consultation.

We had to go through the process of being mad, sad and having a lot of tears, but it didn't take too long to just realize that time is relative and we would make the most memories we could with our girls.

All of 2016 was very intense, since Alyssa's health declined rapidly. We tried to keep her as well as possible, and we spent all our time at home with her. She loved to be home anyway, and we loved to be with her so it wasn't bad at all. Alyssa's hospice team made it easier for us and always made sure she was comfortable. She loved her nurse Jenny.

Alyssa was ready to say goodbye in December of 2016 and she gained her wings on December 5th in the arms of her parents and sister.

Her time with us was short, but she made sure to show us how to live and love intensely.

We miss her very much.