Austen's Story
Before there was a golden ribbon, there was Austen.
Austen was five years old when our world changed.
Following months of suspicious bleeding, she was diagnosed with Stage III embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare childhood cancer. In the months that followed, she underwent a hysterectomy, six months of weekly chemotherapy and countless CT scans and MRIs at AFLAC Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
Those are the clinical facts. But they don’t begin to tell the whole story.
They don’t tell you how almost overnight, our lives became a world of doctors, hospital visits and words we never imagined needing to understand. She lost her hair. She had days when she felt good enough to laugh and play, and days when she was simply exhausted. And through all of it, she was still Austen—a funny, spirited little girl trying to be five in the middle of something no five-year-old should have to experience.
They also don’t tell you about all the people who showed up.
Our family was surrounded by extraordinary friends and family, doctors and nurses, and people who found ways—big and small—to make an impossibly difficult time a little easier. They reminded us that when you don’t have enough hope or strength of your own, sometimes other people carry it for you.
And Austen kept going, with her beloved Ellie always at her side.
After those six months of treatment, she was declared cancer-free.
Eight years later, she still is.
Today, Austen is a healthy, vibrant eighth grader. She is still funny, but she is also smart, strong and compassionate, and so much more than something that happened to her when she was five. Watching her grow into the young woman she is becoming is a gift we will never take for granted.
She is also my inspiration and my greatest hero.
Years after Austen’s treatment ended, I found myself thinking about the words I wish we could have given her when she was five: that courage didn’t mean she had to stop being afraid, and that accepting someone else’s strength when yours runs low is its own kind of courage.
That became the heart of The Girl with the Golden Ribbon.
The book is not Austen’s literal story, but its heart belongs to her—and to the family, friends, doctors, nurses and countless others who carried hope for us when we needed it most.
Today, we get to carry some of that hope forward.
And for that, I am endlessly grateful.
— Elizabeth