4-Year-Old Boy Made a Promise to His Dying Sister, Now He’s Kept It for 13 Years
According to CBS News, at 4 years old, Brunswick, Georgia, resident Alex Kunda adored his older sister Miranda.
The young girl was so engaged in her studies that she never missed a day of first grade. That’s an impressive achievement for any newly minted student.
However, Miranda had extenuating circumstances: She suffered from autoimmune hepatitis.
This high school senior made a promise to his sister before she passed away 13 years ago. Alex Kunda vowed to continue in her footsteps of perfect attendance & will now be graduating w/o missing a single day of K-12. Hear his exclusive interview at 5:55 p.m. on @ActionNewsJax. pic.twitter.com/6WYIe5djuo
— Elizabeth Pace (@PaceAnJax) April 24, 2019
The Mayo Clinic explained that “autoimmune hepatitis is liver inflammation that occurs when your body’s immune system turns against liver cells.”
The condition can cause chronic fatigue, nausea, joint pain and abdominal pain.
Sometimes autoimmune hepatitis can require a liver transplant. In Miranda’s case, it tragically ended up taking her life.
At some point when it became evident that Miranda wouldn’t make it, her school presented her with a reward for her perfect attendance. According to WHIO, the task of accepting it in person fell to then-4-year-old Alex.
When he exited the stage with the reward in hand, he had something to tell his parents.
His father, Preston Kunda, recalled: “He says, ‘I’m going to do this for her.’ He was going to get perfect attendance in honor of her.”
Who knows whether or not Alex’s parents initially chalked up that statement to youthful enthusiasm. But one thing became clear as each year rolled into the next: Alex planned to keep his promise.
In fact, he parents became so concerned with their son’s insistence on making it to school each and every day that they tried to get him to break his attendance streak. While he was in the fourth grade, they offered to take him out of school so he could go to Disney World.
“On a Friday, we were going to take him out of school. And he said no,” his mother, Arlene Kunda, said.
Alex had good reason for maintaining his consistent punctuality.
“This was the one promise I remembered making to her,” he said. “And I can’t make any more promises to her in person, anymore. So the one promise I did make, I was going to keep it.”
“I’ve never been absent, tardy, or been checked out early for the past 13 years,” he added. “Every time I would not want to come to school, I would think about the promise I made and how important it was for me to keep it.”
The Daily Mail estimated that Alex’s achievement translated into roughly 2,340 days in the classroom.
Now a high school graduate, he has become the only student ever in the Glynn County School District to have perfect attendance.
Of course, the real reward for Alex has to be the tangible demonstration of his love for his sister.
CORRECTION, May 16, 2019: This article originally stated that Alex Kunda was from Florida. Brunswick is located in Glynn County, Georgia.
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