Popular Teen Dies Hours Before Welcome Home Parade

By NBC News

Popular Teen Dies Hours Before Welcome Home Parade

November 1, 2012 Updated Nov 1, 2012 at 8:43 AM PDT

What was supposed to be a welcome-home parade instead turned into a somber candlelight vigil for a terminally ill 15-year-old Kansas girl who died hours before she was to return home.

Residents of the town of Mulvane had decorated Main Street with ribbons and signs in orange — the color of leukemia awareness — to welcome Taylor Heersche home Tuesday evening, The Wichita Eagle reported.

Taylor had been terminally ill with cancer and had told her family she wanted to be at home to die. Doctors at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City told the family she had only a few more days to live, so the plan was to release her to be with her family and friends.

But Taylor passed away Tuesday morning at the hospital, with her parents, DeAnne and Dan Heersche, at her side.

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