Little Lizzy Myers was diagnosed with a condition that could result in complete blindness, leaving her parents Steve and Christine devastated.
But they pulled themselves together for her sake and went to work on a “visual bucket list” for their daughter.
Yesterday, little Lizzy checked off one of the big ones: meeting Pope Francis.
The five-year-old, along with her parents and three-year-old sister Michaela, had special seats for the general audience with the Pope, where she was able to meet him in person.
The Pope caressed Lizzy's eyes and prayed for her, and the little girl got visibly emotional as he did.
Adorably, she gave him a gift – a piece of meteorite from an observatory she had recently visited – and he gave her a hug and blessed her eyes.
“I felt an overwhelming sense of peace when they met," mum Christine said at a press conference following the meeting.
“Since the beginning of all of this, this is the first time I have felt peace.”
As for Lizzy, “She was awestruck. She just stared at him, she had totally big eyes,” Christine said.
Lizzy attends a Catholic Montessori school back home in Ohio, and was excited to meet Pope, whom she refers to as the “big guy in the white hat.”
When she first heard the family was going to Rome, where the Pope lived, she asked if she could knock on his door.
The family is in Rome courtesy of Turkish Airlines, whose head heard her story and offered the clan free tickets to their destination of choice.
They chose Rome because of their Catholic faith, and of course the beauty and culture so prevalent in the city.
"I was very nervous coming up to the moment," dad Steve said. "But as soon as Pope Francis came up to where Lizzy was, a calm came over me."
The couple said they hope that Lizzy’s story will encourage other parents of children with bi-lateral hearing loss to genetically test their children for Usher II Syndrome, so they might be able to give their children as many visual experiences as possible before it’s too late.
Watch the little fighter below.
