With a touching message on his social media, Loukas Fourlas referred to the loss of his daughter, Artemis who "gone" due to cancer 5 years ago.
The Cypriot MEP, with a post on his personal Facebook account, talked about the difficulties his daughter went through during the chemotherapy treatments and also his own feelings about the difficult struggle that little Artemis was fighting. He accompanied his highly emotional words with a photo of his daughter.
" Until the last moment I hoped, I prayed and begged God. In the end, when all hope was gone, I just begged you not to hurt... It was just after 11pm on August 19th when you spread your wings and flew up.. Where you didn't hurt anymore. Where your little body would calm down from operations, piercings and sufferings. All that for almost 2 years you suffered without complaint with a smile and an incredible strength that you shared with all of us. It's been 5 years since that night in the pediatric oncology ward with the deafening silence and a muted cry disturbing the quiet of August.
Not a day goes by that I don't think of you, a moment that I don't miss you. Every year and more. As a human, I questioned everything with thousands of whys flooding my mind. I put up with God because he didn't listen to our prayers.. How is it possible that our own sins should make a baby suffer like this. How is it possible for a baby to be in so much pain.. God how is it possible... It took me a long time to reconcile... To understand.. The most relentless question that consumes me day and night…. if there was anything else we could do to save you…. If there was something that could be done anywhere in the world and we didn't know about it or missed it.. That doesn't leave me alone… It's been 5 years.. Every day more difficult. Each year weighs more heavily on the loss. The pain does not soften with time. For me you are now in every pink flower that blooms, in every fleeting cloud in the sky, in every little girl who smiles happily, in every dawn and in every sunset with the colors hiding in the sky.
I see and feel you in every other child who is fighting his own battle and I see you in front of me smiling with that beautiful smile and your brilliant little eyes shining when he defeats cancer and rings the winning bell. Forgive us my love for not being able to save you. All I can do now is to try together with many other good people to help in any way we can the other babies who are fighting their own battle. And we do it for you my little Heroine. For you, my Artemis.. For our Panagiota, Nicole, Konstantinos, Evelina and every angel in Heaven. Every baby that is saved and you with it. I love you always my soul. The priest. "
