Dying 27-year-old's heartbreaking open letter to the world goes viral

Publish Date
Monday, 8 January 2018, 10:20AM
Facebook / Holly Butcher

Facebook / Holly Butcher

Just hours after cancer took her life, Holly Butcher's family shared her final heartbreaking letter of advice for the world on Facebook.

The emotional letter has since gone viral.

Before she died, the 27-year-old Australian - who passed away on January 4 after a battle with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer in and around the bones - wrote a letter to the world encouraging everyone to cherish every day.

"It's a strange thing to realise and accept your mortality at 26 years young," she reflected.

"It's just one of those things you ignore. The days tick by and you just expect they will keep on coming; until the unexpected happens.

"That's the thing about life; it is fragile, precious, unpredictable and each day is a gift, not a given right," she wrote.

"I’m 27 now. I don’t want to go. I love my life."

Holly said she wanted people to stop worrying about the "meaningless stresses in life".

"Let all that s*** go ... it is so insignificant when you look at life as a whole," Holly wrote.

"Take a big breath of that fresh Aussie air deep in your lungs, look at how blue the sky is and how green the trees are ... think how lucky you are to be able to do just that - breathe."

The young woman signed off her letter by reminding everyone to donate blood.

"Blood donation helped keep me alive for an extra year - a year I will be forever grateful that I got to spend it here on earth with my family, friends and dog," she wrote.

"A year I had some of the greatest times of my life."

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