Lara Lynn DeCosta

Lara Lynn DeCosta was born on January 30, 1999 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California. She was born prematurely at 27 weeks and only weighed 15 ounces at birth. After 11 grueling months in the NICU and PICU, our little fighter came home. At the time, no child previously born at that birth weight had ever made it home. It wasn’t so obvious then but Lara was put on this Earth for a purpose and that purpose was to brighten the day of everyone she came in contact with. Her smile, wittiness, inquisitiveness and DETERMINATION (and I stress determination) gave you no choice but to fall in love with her and see your own life from a different perspective. She lived her life to the absolute fullest with complete disregard for the medical ailments associated with her low birth weight. Nothing was going to prevent her from enjoying every single second she had on this Earth…except for maybe that homework that she was always trying to negotiate her way out of doing.

Lara loved animals. From the cows and pigs in her infancy, to Simba from the Lion King, to Blue from Blue’s Clues, to the dogs of the Westminster Dog Show, to the mischievous cats of Cats the Musical, to the green lizard and her favorite red Firebird from Mystere (Cirque du Soleil). And all along the way her own real dogs, cats and lizards and every single animal that crossed her path. It didn’t matter how viscous the animal…she was going to go pet it. As she once explained “I like the challenge.”

Her second passion was dancing. She could always shake her little booty with the best of them but following her love of Cats the Musical and Cirque du Soleil she developed into a real dancer. And she learned all those great moves on her own. And watch out for her on Just Dance 2. Some of her proudest moments came when she went to 6th Grade and got the opportunity to attend school dances on Friday nights. She was blossoming into a very mature and social little 12 year old girl.

But what no one knew was that she had a silent killer lurking in her already taxed body. We will learn more in the coming weeks but it appears that a very rare disease called Pulmonary Hypertension took our sweet Lara away from us. Although she was very sick, our little fighter was still enjoying all the things she loved and putting a smile on everyone’s face right up to the very end.

The sadness from her loss is overwhelming, almost suffocating. But what gets me through the day is the knowledge that we are all better people today because Lara got to spend the last 12 years with us. She fought all the odds to get out of the hospital after birth for the sole purpose of making this Earth a better place and making all of us better people. She had absolutely no regrets and I couldn’t be a more proud father for seeing the contributions she made.

Her mother, dearest little sister, myself and the rest of her family would like to sincerely thank all the doctors, nurses, therapists and other medical & hospital staff that helped bring her into the world and keep her as healthy as possible. We especially thank Dr. Alan Klein, her pediatrician throughout, for his guiding hand in leading the charge with Lara’s health. We couldn’t have made it through the rough times without him.

We also want to sincerely thank all the teachers, teachers’ aides, administrative staff and all the specialists of the Brookside Elementary, Medea Creek Middle School and others through out the Oak Park School District for helping us develop Lara into the great kid that she was.

We will love and miss you forever Lara, our little firebird.