Graduation is the high point for many people and they wait many years to walk across the stage and get their diploma. Unfortunately, there are also times when bad things happen.
When 18-year-old Sienna Stewart was at her high school commencement ceremony recently, she collapsed. A camera managed to capture it, and it has been shared online.
It was a very frightening moment and a school official walked up to the microphone to quiet the crowd and asked them to “give us a second.” They then called for Sienna’s mother, Saevon Chum.
Sienna did regain consciousness and asked her mother to allow her to walk across the stage. She was the last person to graduate and received a huge round of applause.
Unfortunately, three weeks after that event took place, her mother has revealed that her daughter died. She had been sick since a young age, when she was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy at the age of four. She started getting sick and was given a transplant.
After the transplant, she went on to live a “relatively normal life for 10 years.” She then started a slow downward trend.
Last April, she began experiencing episodes of unconsciousness and collapsing. She was diagnosed with heart failure. She collapsed at her graduation and again two weeks later.
According to her mother: “It was a scary moment at graduation, but she was a tough cookie ever since she was little. She was just so tough. She was just strength and resilience, she was just so strong.”
She said that her daughter was very interested in getting her diploma and walking across the stage. She said: “I just want to graduate, I want to walk.”
Her mother said: “That’s all she wanted, because she already missed her prom, because before then she was in the hospital and missed her senior prom.”
She was proud as her daughter graduated from high school, even though she had collapsed not long before walking across the stage. Unfortunately, her daughter passed away on June 12.
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Oh, what a tragic tale! 😢 Sienna Stewart, an 18-year-old Hiram High School graduate, passed away just weeks after collapsing at her graduation ceremony. It seems like she was a real fighter though, as she insisted on walking across the stage to receive her diploma… pic.twitter.com/34mWBXsgB6— Ravi Rana (@RaviRRana) June 25, 2024
Her obituary said that she was going to go to college to start studying sonogram tech the next school year. She is remembered as somebody who has a contagious presence.
In addition, the obituary said: “She fill the room with sweet warm respectful energy, her upbeat enthused tone of voice that uplifts your spirits instantly. Sienna fashion sensibility is unmatched, always looking so amazing every where she goes. Everyone that knows her know this.”
Our thoughts are with the family during this difficult time.