Sun-News report

LAS CRUCES - She was courageous, and wanted to tackle the mountains of northern New Mexico and the Wall of China alike. She was sweet, and loved the color pink. She was strong, but taught others peace.

Tombaugh Elementary School first-grader Kaylin Tru Benavidez was laid to rest Saturday in Pecos, N.M., after an almost four-month battle with brain cancer that ended Monday.

Robert Benavidez , an officer with the Las Cruces Police Department since 2003, and his wife, Jeanette, a case worker at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility, noticed Kaylin's diminished energy just a month after her sixth birthday, they said in a prepared news release in November.

They thought their daughter was having vision problems, but eye doctors couldn't figure out what the problem was. Then, she came home from school and said she'd had a hard time focusing - and that she had a bad headache.

Kaylin was taken to a local emergency room. Tests revealed a mass in her head. She was airlifted to the University of New Mexico hospital in Albuquerque for more advanced screening, which revealed a brainstem glioma, a severely aggressive cancer usually found in children that can spread throughout the nervous system and can cause severe headaches, nausea, weakness, seizures and balance problems.

Since her Sept. 15 diagnosis, Kaylin had completed 30 radiation treatments in Albuquerque, aimed at slowing down the growth of the tumor or even shrinking it. Because the cancer was

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so intertwined among vital parts of the brain, neurosurgery and chemotherapy were out of the question.

Just after Thanksgiving, spent with family in Pecos, Kaylin was even set to return to school, where she had been taking Chinese language classes twice a week as part of her school's dual-language program. She had even told her parents that she planned to stand on the Great Wall of China some day.

"Kaylin Tru showed us how to be strong," her family wrote in an obituary published Thursday in the Sun-News. "She never once cried or complained during her battle with cancer. She is our inspiration ... She was a very thoughtful young lady who taught us to look at the world differently and mothered everyone she met. Forever our hero."

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked for donations to be made to the Kaylin Tru Benavidez account at First Community Bank, account number 003824586.