Funeral details set for 4th Coast child to die of rare DIPG cancer. She was 3 years old.
Funeral arrangements are set Tuesday for 3-year-old Brooklyn Willis who died after a seven-month battle with a rare and incurable brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG.
Brooklyn was surrounded by family when she died Wednesday at a Mobile hospital.
The services begins with visitation at 5 p.m. followed by a celebration of her life beginning at 6 p.m., all at St. Peter Baptist Church on South Market Street in Pascagoula. The service is open to the public.
A private homegoing celebration and burial is set Thursday for Brooklyn’s family at Macphelah Cemetery in Pascagoula.
Brooklyn is now the fourth Coast child to die from DIPG, a cancer that is so rare it affects between 300 and 400 children a year nationwide. DIPG forms on the pons of the brain and spreads like sand. The cancer mostly affects children and slowly takes away their ability to walk, talk, hear and see.
Brooklyn’s aunt, Patricia Riley, said she died around 10 a.m. at the University of South Alabama Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Mobile and has “gone to her heavenly home.”
“She fought a good, long hard fight, my angel,” she said.
Brooklyn’s family started noticing she wasn’t feeling well in July.
The family started taking her to doctors after they first noticed she wasn’t her usual active self, and had started drooling occasionally and stumbling when she walked.
Brooklyn’s grandmother, Tarry Hall, spoke to the Sun Herald about Brooklyn’s illness shortly after her diagnosis.
At first, Hall said, doctors thought Brooklyn might have been feeling bad because she was teething.
As her condition worsened and her family was unable to wake her one day, they rushed her to Singing River Hospital for further evaluation.
After some tests, Hall and Brooklyn’s parents, Paarish Mitchell and Brandon Willis, learned Brooklyn was suffering from DIPG.
Hall described Brooklyn as a “spunky” and “independent” little girl who preferred to do everything on her own if she could.
Since 2010, three other Ocean Springs children — Sophia Mohler, 8, Jaxon Schoenberger, 6, and Sophia Ann Myers, 7 — have died from DIPG.
Brooklyn’s family and others have questioned why so many children have faced the same deadly diagnosis in Jackson County.
Since her diagnosis, Brooklyn has been in the care of doctors at University of South Alabama Children’s Hospital. Brooklyn got to go back home to Moss Point for a while after her diagnosis.
She was hospitalized again Saturday.
To make donations, go to any branch of Singing River Federal Credit Union or go to Brooklyn’s GoFundMe account.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 11:48 AM.
