My name is Ashley Fleming, and I'm an 18-year-old senior at Abilene High School in Abilene, Texas. I'm a former volleyball player who loves Jesus, my church (Pioneer Drive Baptist Church), my family, and my friends. I love to sit with my mom and talk while we watch our favorite shows on TV, joke around with my dad, and irritate my younger brother, Ryan. And I love spending time with friends from both school and church. I've been accepted to Abilene Christian University, where I will major in elementary education because I want to give joy and love to young children as a second-grade teacher. My favorite teacher was a woman named Pam Porter, who was my first-grade teacher. She was a loving, caring teacher who allowed me to be myself. She put up with some of my “eccentricities.” She never tried to dim what made me, me. And that's what I want to give to the students I will teach someday. Cancer entered my life and our home when I was five years old. In November of 2010 – only five months after my fifth birthday – my older brother, Rex, was diagnosed with a Grade III Glioblastoma deep in the middle of his brain. Rex underwent a 13-hour surgery at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth in December 2010 to remove the tumor, and in January 2011, he underwent 30 radiation treatments in Fort Worth. My parents were gone a lot with Rex, especially my mom, who lived with him in Fort Worth. But my parents always had time for me and never let me get down. We had a great two years with Rex, who had another surgery in December 2011 to remove more of the tumor. He was never sick the entire time he was battling cancer, and he and I lived a regular life outside of his trips to Fort Worth for chemotherapy treatments and doctor's visits. But in November 2011 – on my little brother's first birthday – Rex had a seizure, and he went to hospice care. I watched my parents take care of him every day after he came home to live out his last few days. But they still had time for me and my younger brother, Ryan. My big brother died on Nov. 25, 2012, just 39 days after he had turned 10 years old. I've missed him in so many ways I can't count them all. After a hard day in seventh grade, my mom picked me up, and I told her I needed to talk to Rex. She drove me to the cemetery where he's buried, and I stood over his grave, staring at his headstone, talking to him and crying at the same time. It sounds strange, but it made me feel better. I still talk to him almost daily. He's part of my life and will be forever. I sense his presence around me. I know he's watching over our family. Cancer might have taken my brother, but it brought our family closer together. It might have taken him away from us physically, but it will never take away our memories of him. It might have robbed us of the last 12 years with him, but it will never take away the love we shared while he was here.