BECKER – Abigail Lee was a special child. It’s not just her parents who think so. Friends and family alike remember the youngster as one of God’s special angels who had a message of love and caring for all.

Abigail was only on this earth for 11 years. The daughter of David and Hope Lee of Becker, she died July 11 from a brief but lethal bout of spinal meningitis.

The Lees want to remember their daughter by establishing Abby Acres Christian Camp in her memory on a tract of their land on Old Hwy. 25 in Becker.

Abigail’s mother, Hope, recalls a rough past year that included every parent’s worst fear, the death of one of their children.

Until last July, Abigail was a healthy, happy, loving child. She loved life and is best remembered for her kind-heartedness and good manners ... and her warm smile. She liked church, choir, GAs, riding horses, doing crafts and being with her friends and family.

Tragedy strikes

Last April, the Lee family awoke about 3 a.m. to find that their 3,000-square-foot home in Becker was on fire. They all narrowly escaped the blaze and the home and nearly all of their belongings were a total loss. They even lost their pet dog and two cats in the fire.

Abigail's father, David Lee, is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, serving as a flight instructor at Columbus Air Force Base. The Lee family which included Hope, David and their three children Mark, 19, Wade, 16, and Abigail, 11, moved to the air base and planned to rebuild their home in Becker. They still had their barn and horses there on their 20 acres.

But one Monday in July, Abigail had gone horseback riding with her brother and that evening she said she had a headache. Her mother gave her an Advil and water and kept an eye on her. It seemed like the typical minor childhood illness. But by Wednesday, Abigail had developed a fever and began vomiting so her mother took her to the doctor. He ran tests on her and found her white blood count to be elevated. But she did not have a sore neck that would have been typical of spinal meningitis. She was prescribed some medications and went home to recuperate.

By Friday morning Abigail was sicker and awoke at about 4 a.m. A couple hours later she was even sicker with fever and couldn’t even talk with her family. “I guess she was having a seizure,” her mother recalls. “Her eyes were twitching.”

They rushed Abigail to the emergency room at the Columbus hospital and by that afternoon, hospital staff there had decided she needed to be airlifted to LeBonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis. Her condition deteriorated even more. The next day doctors were talking to the Lees about doing brain tests to determine whether Abigail was still alive.

The Lees soon learned that their daughter was not going to survive her illness. She was going to have to be removed from life support. While coming to these realizations, her mother recalled that about two weeks prior to Abigail’s illness, they had been watching a television program together about organ donors and Abigail had told her mother that if she ever died she wanted to be an organ donor.

Because of her spinal meningitis infection, the only organs that were suitable for donation were her kidneys and liver.

“We said goodbye to her there in the hospital,” Hope said. Ironically enough, at the same time as the Lees were saying their final farewells to their daughter, another Monroe County family was at the same hospital awaiting a liver transplant for their 14-year-old daughter who had been on the transplant list about nine months.

In talking to their own church family and pastor Terry Edwards from Center Hill Baptist Church in Hamilton, the Lees learned that their daughter’s liver was being donated to Caitlin Goode who was their pastor’s wife Pat’s niece. The Lees were glad that they were able to connect with the very family who benefited from their daughter’s organ donation, especially since donor families are usually anonymous to one another. The Lees found some comfort in the thought that in Abigail’s untimely death, she provided another child with the gift of life.

A very faith-filled family, the Lees attribute the coincidences to God’s doing. Hope said that they believed when they lost their home to a fire that it was the most devastating thing a family could ever have to endure. Since then, they have learned otherwise. “It’s nothing compared to losing a child,” Hope said. “It’s very difficult, though, to have lost everything that was Abigail’s. We have none of her dolls or photos or things to hold onto to remember her because it was all lost in the fire. But people have been very good and supportive to us and have given us back photos they had of Abigail."

But the Lees are moving on, knowing that God’s ways are not always easy to understand. “But we know good things will come out of this someday,” Hope said.

Abby Acres

The Lees want to remember their daughter by establishing a Christian camp in her memory. “We prayed a lot about what to do with the memorial money,” her mother said. “We don’t want her death to have been in vain.” Abby Acres will open this summer in Becker. They are currently planning for the camp to serve children and offer horseback riding, Bible study, crafts and recreation. It will initially serve girls 8 to 12 years of age and expand as time goes by to serve other groups. Plans are to build a bunk house that will sleep about 10 to 12 people. Abigail's brother's class plans to help with the project. “We will start out small and see how it’s received,” Hope said. “It gives us a positive thing to focus on.”

The Lees are also in the process of trying to get their new house built in Becker whenever the weather dries up. It will be on the same site as the burned one was.

A fundraiser on Oct. 17 for the camp is bittersweet for the Lees. “Because we know Abigail would have wanted to be in the midst of the whole thing helping with it,” Hope said.

Fall Festival planned

A Fall Festival Fundraiser for the Abby Acres Christian Camp will be held on Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Amory Livestock Pavilion on Phillips Schoolhouse Road in Amory. The location was moved to Amory due to wet weather. . All proceeds from this event will go to the Abigail Ruth Lee Memorial Fund. The event will begin at 10 a.m. and be for all ages.

There will be trail rides, horseback rides and games, a hay maze, pumpkin decorating, a dunking booth, a bouncing castle, cake walk, food concessions and T-shirts for sale. At 2 p.m. there will be a horse show and auction.

Amber Parker owner of Hobby Horse Barn in Becker said the event should be a full day of fun, food and fellowship. She remembers Abigail as a shining light in everyone’s life. “She was such a wonderful child,” Parker said.

Anyone wishing to donate can make checks payable to: The Abigail Lee Memorial Fund. They can be sent to any Cadence Bank in the area or to Cadence Bank at P.O. Box 10, Hamilton, MS 39746.