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Home  / News & Publications /  Michigan Catholic News / 2008 /  Remembering Natalie

by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 22, 2008

Some of the lessons learned in Catholic schools don't come out of a curriculum or from a text book, but rather are born of life experiences.

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Members of the figure skating team at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, which competes for the state championship in March, wear warm-up shirts with Natalie Salazar's initials on the sleeve to remember their would-be teammate who died in September. From front: freshman Angela Agius, senior Nicole Shaver, freshman Katie Lang, senior Kelsey Desjarlais, and coaches Lisa Taylor and Leticia Romero.

This school year, many students at Divine Child High School in Dearborn learned a very difficult lesson about hope, tragedy, the power of prayer, and the value of good friends. The lessons were taught by 13-year-old Natalie Salazar.

A cheerful friend, stellar student and superb young figure skater, Salazar died after a year-long battle with cancer on Sept. 20 last year — but what she brought to the young people who knew her, they say, has carried throughout the year.

"She always gave me hope for every situation," said her good friend Kailey Hawkins, who'd known Natalie since the early grades at St. Anselm grade school. "She always referred to what God wanted for us.

"We definitely all have hope, and we're definitely a lot closer than we used to be as friends," she added, speaking of her circle of friends. "We were all there for each other through the whole thing."

Natalie's death was at the beginning of the school year, but students at Divine Child, especially in the freshman class, have made several efforts to remember her throughout the year as an unseen classmate and an ever-present inspiration.

Bill Bresler | Canton Observer Natalie Salazar, a 13 year old who was diagnosed with cancer while in the eighth grade at St. Anselm School in Dearborn, skates after having been diagnosed with cancer. Salazar's life and optimistic attitude left a lasting impression on her friends, classmates, parish communities and the skating community.been able to do much since becoming ill.

Natalie's story

In competitive figure skating, presentation counts.

A skater can win or lose based on her attitude, the way she holds her head up, and how easily a smile comes across her face.

Skating was a huge part of Natalie's life — and when it came to presentation, she had it down. Her friends, parents, classmates, coaches, teammates and even those who competed against her commonly use two words to describe Natalie: "high spirits." She was the eternal optimist, they say, always with a smile, no matter what she was facing.

"We all just felt really close to her, even if we didn't skate with her," said Kayla Kuffner, a sophomore on Divine Child's skating team who knew Natalie through years of skating at the Dearborn Disc rink. "Seeing her around, she always seemed to have really high spirits because she was going to attend DC this year."

Natalie had been figure skating since she was 3. A petite girl with olive skin, dark hair and a wide smile, she was a natural on the ice. But those who knew her describe her cheerfulness as reaching far beyond the skating rink, into every aspect of her life.

"She was always happy and she would always make me smile," said George Loeper, another classmate of Natalie's at St. Anselm who now attends Divine Child High School. "She was that kind of person."

She also was a person of prayer. Her classmates knew Natalie as one who would think often of God's will for her, spend time praying with her family and make sure to go to Mass each Friday as well as on weekends.

Her parents, Sumorfin and Maria Salazar, knew more deeply of the intimate relationship their daughter had with the Lord.

Natalie would read the Bible each night, and pray the rosary often. She also read about the saints, they say.

"She would invite the saints and angels into her room," says Maria Salazar.

Natalie loved animals as well as people, and even wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. Also amid her many interests, her parents said, was cancer — even before her diagnosis.

Maria and Sumorfin say she read 11 books about children with cancer before an advanced tumor, a cancer known as neuroblastoma, was discovered in her stomach and bones in September 2006.

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Maria and Sumorfin Salazar, in their Canton home, hold a prayer card from their late daughter's funeral. They say Natalie offered her suffering for others.

"When she was diagnosed, she already knew everything about it," Maria said.

For several months after her diagnosis, Natalie still lived at home and was able to undergo outpatient treatments, with much hope for a cure. Last summer, however, the treatments no longer showed success, and her days became numbered.

She spent her last weeks at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor. All the while, Maria said, she offered up what pain she felt for the conversion of hard-hearted sinners.

Today, five months after her death, the Salazars, who live in Canton, have a veritable library of letters, greeting cards, newspaper clippings, and church bulletins, each one a testament to how Natalie's life touched the people of various parish communities, the skating world and her school.

In a letter to parishioners in the St. Anselm Parish bulletin, pastor Msgr. James Moloney wrote after her death that Natalie was a brave example to her peers.

"How many times she could have given up and said, 'no more,' but she continued to fight because she truly wanted to live," Msgr. Moloney wrote. "God only gave her 13 years, but what full years they were."

Similar testimonies about the young girl's life were written in newspapers, skating magazines, and the bulletins of St. Barbara Parish in Dearborn and St. Thomas a'Becket Parish in Canton.

"We feel so proud," says Sumorfin. "It is great to know that she impacted so many people. That's something special — that we have such a great gift with Natalie."

Lessons learned

When Natalie was diagnosed with cancer, her friends were confounded. They thought all the time "Why Natalie?" — a cheerful, prayerful girl and a good friend.

As Natalie's condition grew worse, the question only loomed larger.

"I found out the day when she was told she had only two months to live," says Kailey. "I was so angry. I thought to myself, 'She was such a good person. Why couldn't God do this to someone like a serial killer or something?'"

 

Natalie Salazar's eighth-grade class at St. Anselm organized an eighth-grade prom for their friend. Natalie, in the front row, holds onto a bouquet of roses.

Lisa Taylor, coach of the Divine Child skating team, who formerly coached Natalie in the Arctic Figure Skating Club, said that when her skating team learned that Natalie's treatments were failing, it hit them hard.

The team had warm-up shirts made with the initials NS on the shoulder to remember their would-be teammate.

"We were all looking forward to her being on the team," Taylor said. "That's when it hit the girls — cancer does happen. It does affect people. When her initials were on the t-shirt, I think they realized 'Wow, our teammate is not with us anymore.'"

Something else happened surrounding Natalie's condition, her fellow skaters said — they began to appreciate their own lives more.

Kelsey Desjarlais, a senior skater at Divine Child who also had known Natalie through the skating community, says she and her friends had a definite change of heart after they got to know Natalie.

"We were taking everything for granted, like not wanting to go to school, or thinking it was stupid," Kelsey says, noting that Natalie's unrealized dream was to attend just one day of high school at Divine Child. "After we went and visited her (in the hospital), all that changed because she didn't even get a first day of high school. We felt really bad about that."

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Natalie Salazar's friends, now freshmen at Divine Child, wear dogtags and bracelets bearing her name. From left: George Loeper, Kailey Hawkins, Jillian Drapala, Paul Kinder and Jimmy Maier.

Natalie's friends didn't just let the final months of their companion's life slip away, either.

When it became clear that Natalie would not make it to her senior prom in high school, the then-eighth-graders organized an early prom at the Dearborn Ritz Carleton. When she checked into Mott Children's Hospital, they decorated her room to the hilt, impressing even the hospital staff, the Salazars say.

They also wrote volumes of messages on a Web site established for Natalie. And they thanked her parents for the gift of Natalie's life in visits, phone calls and letters. "Natalie was a great inspiration," says Lynda Kinder, the mother of Paul Kinder, one of Natalie's closest friends from St. Anselm. "They were always schoolmates, but once this happened, they just became so much tighter and closer."

Her spirit lives on

At Divine Child, Natalie's story isn't complete. Those who knew her keep her in their hearts, and are confident she's with the Lord.

Memories of Natalie Salazar still are on the minds of those who knew her best, and her name is well-known in the hallways.

"Her spirit is here," says Pam Romanelli, director of student services at the high school. "Even though most of the students never met her, we prayed for her… the students always knew about Natalie and I think they carry a piece of her in their hearts."

Several of Natalie's friends, at her request, wear mementos of their late friend. For the boys, dog tags with Natalie's name etched in them. For the girls, bracelets. The prayers for Natalie will not stop, they say.

Paul Kinder says he catches himself instinctively wondering what Natalie's up to, before recalling that she's no longer alive. Still, he says, she's there. "You always know she's going to be with you," Paul says. "She's always thinking of you, you're always thinking of her."

Kailey still thinks about her when she walks into her honors biology class — a class that Natalie had looked forward to with excited anticipation. And Natalie's friend Jillian Drapala says, "You just think about her all the time."

Lynda Kinder added that the community that was forged through last year's eighth-grade class at St. Anselm was transformed and made stronger through the sorrow of Natalie's illness.

"She was part of us, and they hold her close," she says of her son and his friends. "I think of her every day and thank God for her, because she really brought them so close, and it brought the good out in them."

In March, the Divine Child figure skating team will be competing for the state championship. Some of the teammates say they still think of Natalie when they face the rigors of competition.

In skating, as in life, they recall, she ended her routine with her head held high, an optimistic attitude, and a bright smile on her face.

"When bad things come, you just look at the positive — that's how she always was," says freshman Sara Bartles. "She was always looking on the bright side."