On August 26, 2010, a soon-to-be mom went in for her weekly doctor’s appointment. Her pregnancy had been high risk, and more than once the couple had been faced with the difficult possibility that their baby might not survive to full term.

 

During that routine appointment on a warm summer day, it was determined that the baby needed to be delivered immediately. Upon arriving at the hospital, the mother was taken back and prepped for a C-section, as the baby was in a jackknife breech position.

 

In the early afternoon, the doctor announced to the couple that they had a baby girl. It was while the mother was in recovery that her husband entered the room and told her not to worry, but that the baby had been moved to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She had started to struggle to breathe.

 

For seven long days, that baby fought to heal and recover.

 

That baby was Alana Renee VanMeter.

 

Despite the odds, she fought to live.

 

And Alana truly lived life to its fullest.

 

The Itty Bitty Years

As a toddler, she could be found dancing in the living room, jumping in mud puddles, and giving the family pets checkups. She loved bedtime stories and cuddling with her parents. She laughed often and never stopped smiling. Even at that young age, she showed everyone that she was sassy, determined, and incredibly intelligent.

 

When Alana turned 3, she became a big sister, something she was unbelievably excited about. She took a big sister class and often asked her parents to read her “big sissy” books. When her little sister, Allison, finally arrived, Alana jumped right into the role.

Whatever her sister needed, she was willing to help with.

 

When Allison started crawling, she could often be seen seeking out her big sissy. The two became fast friends and were often found cuddled together on the sofa while watching TV. It was something they continued to do throughout the years, even when Alana was in high school and Allison was transitioning to middle school.

 

As many close sisters do, they shared stories, played together, had inside jokes, and supported one another through struggles. Even when Alana no longer cared about Barbie dolls, she could still be found in her sister’s room playing Barbies with Allison, simply because Allison asked her to.

 

There was nothing Alana loved more than her little sister.

 

Her Childhood

From preschool through early elementary school, Alana went on many adventures with her mother and sister. She attended a Princess Ball, Disney on Ice, and Cinderella’s wedding. She saw Riverdance and The Little Mermaid musical. She went on family camping trips and could often be found playing with neighborhood kids.

 

She joined Girl Scouts and found a group of girls and moms who embraced her like family. She worked hard every year selling cookies and loved learning new skills and going on trips with her troop.

 

In these early years, Alana also found her favorite band, Halestorm. She often had to be reminded not to say the “grown-up words” while singing along with Lzzy Hale.

 

Alana grew into a little girl who loved the arts. Dancing, singing, painting, and drawing. She wanted to do it all. She was happy-go-lucky, silly, sassy, far too smart for her own good, and deeply caring.

 

Despite enduring bullying at school, she chose kindness. She often invited the kids sitting alone on the buddy bench to come play with her. She did not understand how people could be unkind. It confused her. She tried hard to ignore the words of others and instead focused on the

people and things she loved.

 

In late elementary school, Alana discovered even more of her passions. She continued to love the arts and expanded that love by asking to learn guitar. With her natural determination, she tackled one of the hardest instruments to learn.

 

At school, she learned about the Greek gods and goddess quickly becaming obsessed with mythology, inhaling anything and everything she could about it. By high school, she could even correct the pronunciation of her teachers.

 

She continued with Girl Scouts and all of the cookie-selling shenanigans that came with it. She fell in love with Stranger Things, Harry Potter,

and Percy Jackson.

 

She also continued to struggle with bullying, something that sadly would become a theme throughout her life. But even through that, she began to embrace who she was and to celebrate those who were different.

 

She refused to let others dim her light.

 

Middle School

In middle school, Alana joined just about every club she could. She expanded her love for the arts by joining drama club. She even earned a lead role and was invited to perform with the high school during her 8th grade year.

 

She was involved in art club, impact club, archery club, and tech club, and she helped with student council whenever she had time.

 

Many of her teachers came to adore her because she was known for checking in on them. She became known for her good grades, kindness, and passion for the arts. She was often asked by school administration to give tours to new students and gladly offered to support any child transitioning into the district.

 

School staff also asked her to speak to incoming 6th graders about middle school and the many clubs it offered. She even asked if she could revisit her favorite teacher each year by reading to elementary students.

 

During her 6th grade year, Alana received what she considered one of the greatest gifts of her life. Her mother took her to see her all-time favorite band, Halestorm. As she had done all her life, she sang every single song loud and proud right along with Lzzy Hale.

That concert sparked something in her.

 

She would go on to attend five more concerts, with two more already planned.

 

Middle school was not without its challenges. During those years, Alana developed Generalized Anxiety Disorder and began medication and therapy to help manage it.

 

The bullying also continued and reached its peak during this time.

 

Where others might have started shrinking themselves, Alana learned to embrace who she was unapologetically. She took inspiration from her role model, Lzzy Hale.

 

And despite the bullying, the truth was that Alana could make friends with just about anyone.

 

She naturally gravitated toward kids who were different or struggling to find where they fit in. She rarely judged others. Instead, she showed love and kindness to the kids who needed it most.

 

Out of that love and kindness, she developed a close friendship with four boys, firmly establishing her own little Stranger Things crew. She hosted holiday parties, DND campaigns, and attended each of the boys’ birthdays, all while building close relationships with their families, especially their moms.

 

It was during 8th grade graduation that Alana truly shined.

 

While being cheered on by family and friends, to the point of embarrassment, she received three different awards: Honor Roll for all three years, the President’s Award of Excellence, and, perhaps the greatest honor of them all, the American Legion Award.

 

Alana came to realize that she was different from many of the other kids.

 

And she was okay with that, even if they weren’t.

 

The Final Year

Alana entered high school with the same drive to live life to its fullest that she had in middle school.

 

Sadly, she would only get to experience one year of it.

 

Before high school even began, Alana had already decided she wanted to be on the dance team. She attended dance camp that summer and came home excited to practice and show off the dance routine to the school song.

 

Then, in a moment never fully explained, she decided she wanted to join color guard too.

 

Nervously, she attended the two-week band camp as the lone color guard member. Before the first week was even over, she was texting her mom asking to go get lunch with some of the band kids.

 

At freshman orientation, she was being guided around the school with some of her friends when they were shocked that upperclassmen kept saying hello to Alana.

 

She simply smiled at their dismay.

 

Alana attended the school year kickoff for teachers with the rest of the dance team. She lived for Friday night football games, standing on the sidelines with the dance team and then joining the marching band during halftime performances. She would laugh as she would preform with the dance team then run around the track to catch up with the marching band to complete a second performance during halftime.

 

These were the moments she truly loved.

 

She joined the marching band to perform and compete in various events as the lone color guard member. Her willingness to stand alone at the front of the band during parades or weave her way through the band during field shows earned her the respect of numerous schools, directors, and color guards.

 

Like she had in middle school, Alana joined many clubs. She was part of drama club, where she took a step back from acting to serve as stage manager, as well as impact club and writer’s workshop.

 

She also assisted with bus duty, helping make sure the younger students got on the right bus. She could often be found in the library, as she hoped to become a Junior Librarian. She even volunteered her time to dress up as the Grinch for a holiday event hosted by the public library.

 

She requested meetings with the athletic director, color guard coach, and band director because she had a dream: she wanted to build a competitive color guard program. She helped organize a meeting with the 8th grade band students, went with the band to meet the 5th graders, and offered color guard clinics to the high school. She often said she wanted her high school legacy to be color guard.

 

She also continued building her friend group. She was a light that seemed to draw in the people who most needed a place where they were loved and accepted.

 

Many of her friends have since shared that she was the first true friend they ever had. Someone who did not judge them. Someone who would not give up on them. Someone who was willing to support them through their hardest moments. She loved them all unconditionally. She was always willing to listen, support, and give advice when needed.

 

And during this time, Alana also successfully made the transition from friend to girlfriend with one of her middle school friends. Her boyfriend adored her and did everything he could to make her smile.

 

But again, life was not all sunshine and roses for Alana.

 

The bullying continued, though it had lessened greatly. In addition, Alana was diagnosed with PCOS at the end of her 8th grade year. Despite the efforts of doctors, her parents, and Alana herself, managing the symptoms proved difficult.

 

By the spring of 2025, Alana was often sick. She seemed to catch every illness going around school. She began struggling with migraines. Worst of all, she experienced uncontrollable weight gain from her PCOS, the very thing she was often bullied over.

 

And yet, none of it dimmed her shine.

 

The Final Goodbye

​On September 3, 2025, one week and one day after her 15th birthday, Alana sat in the living room waiting for the school bus. She was talking with her mom about a meeting she had scheduled with her dance team coach after school.

 

During that conversation, it initially appeared that Alana was having a panic attack.

 

Her mother and sister did everything they could to support her through it.

​

Then the reality hit. It was not a panic attack. Something was truly wrong.

 

Forty-five minutes later, her heart would stop.

 

The EMTs and ER staff worked diligently to revive her, but they could not.

 

At 11:55, her time of death was pronounced.

 

A few days later, her family learned that she had passed due to a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot from her leg, possibly stemming from a broken ankle she had suffered a month earlier, had traveled to her lungs.

 

In a moment that would later shake her family to its core, Alana had asked her mother just three days before her passing what she would do if Alana died unexpectedly.

 

Though her mother struggled to even fathom such a thing, Alana was insistent that she know the answer. Through tears, her mother told her that her world and heart would shatter.

​

Then she paused and said that she would start a scholarship fund in Alana’s memory.

 

Alana studied her for a moment and simply said:

 

“That’s really nice. Thank you, Mom.”

 

Unfulfilled Dreams

One of the hardest things so many have had to come to terms with in losing Alana is all of the unfulfilled dreams.

 

Her sophomore year had barely started when she passed.

 

She was the president of Writer’s Workshop. She was continuing to meet with the athletic director, color guard coach, and band director, determined to keep fighting for the color guard she dreamed of building. She had met with the teacher who oversaw National Honor Society to begin the process of meeting the requirements for induction. She was developing plans to help grow and organize the stage crew and intended to serve as stage manager once again.

 

The weekend she passed, she was planning to meet with her boyfriend to finalize homecoming plans and go dress shopping with her mom, sister, and best friend.

 

Alana had tickets to take her sister to her first concerts, one of them being Halestorm.

 

She had bought her first vehicle with the help of her parents. The plan was for her and her father to fix it up together so it would be ready when she turned 16.

 

Now that she was 15, Alana had also started looking for a part-time job.

 

As she moved closer to graduation, Alana hoped to attend Rockford Career College to become a vet tech. She was already working with her family’s veterinary office in hopes of interning there.

 

She had even started talking with her parents about how to buy a home one day when she became an adult. She wanted to continue living in or near her hometown.

 

Her hope was to marry her boyfriend and fill their property with animals.

 

Many of her friends had built future plans with Alana too. Trips had been discussed. Concerts and fantasy balls were being planned.

Alana was supposed to be the maid of honor in their weddings.

 

All of it was left unfinished.

 

Legacy

Alana was unique in that, despite whatever she was facing, she chose kindness above all else.

 

As her family, friends, peers, school district, and community grappled with the reality that this bright young girl had been lost to a blood clot in her lungs, an outpouring of love began.

 

The dance team, marching band, and clubs Alana had been part of began to organize. They changed the football game theme, organized fundraisers for the family, left messages and memories, and decorated her locker.

 

That locker remained decorated and protected throughout all of what would have been her sophomore year.

 

A memorial page was dedicated to her in the yearbook. Plans are underway to keep her memory alive through her senior year and beyond.

 

Yet none of those actions are Alana’s true legacy.

 

Alana’s legacy is one of kindness, love, and acceptance.

 

Her memory lives on in every student she openly welcomed on their first day in a new school. It lives on in the spaces she created for kids who needed somewhere to belong. It lives on in the way she checked in on staff throughout the school building, often leaning against a desk or counter and saying with a big smile:

 

“How’s my favorite teacher/staff today?”

 

It shines through in every peer she was willing to lend an ear to when they simply needed someone to listen.

 

Alana was not popular.

 

And yet, as her mother once told her in middle school:

 

“Alana Baby, you will probably never be popular. You don’t play the game to fit in that way. But honey, you will be known throughout the school. You shine too bright not to be seen.”

 

The day the school announced to staff and students that Alana had passed, the hallways grew quieter. Silent acts of love began. Teachers openly cried alongside their students.

 

Not because Alana was popular.

 

But because she was the embodiment of kindness.

 

Alana became a light in so many people’s lives.

 

A light that was dimmed far too soon.