The prognosis came in the summer of 2017 that there was nothing left for Audrey Lupton to try. Still, the 17-year-old wasn't thinking about herself.

Somewhere along the way in her six-month battle with a rare and aggressive cancer, Audrey had made peace with death. She had spent the last few weeks chipping away at a bucket list of life experiences.

Now, it was time to give her family their own boxes to check.

To her dad, Jonathan:Go abroad to practice medicine, keep taking piano lessons, always give charitably.

To her mom, Suzann: Find a job that makes you happy, quit harassing her brother Andrew because he’ll be fine, finish your dissertation, keep taking art classes.

To Andrew:Stop being so hard on yourself, forgive yourself, be confident.

To them all: Find adventure, and don't smoke, drink or fight.

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Her own goals were similarly simple, like finishing all the Harry Potter books and getting accepted to college. Her friends scrambled to help her finish it, and their story brought an outpouring of love and prayers.

One man who contacted IndyStar about her fight offered to pay for a private jet to get Audrey to Michigan, one of her list items. University High School in Carmel created Audrey's Fund for Good as donations in her honor started rolling in. Her friends would later use the fund to create an outdoor study and hammock space on school grounds in her honor.

Audrey died on July 6, 2017, about six months after she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma.

More than a year later, sitting together on the porch of their Indianapolis home, Suzann and Jonathan look back with a smile.

The past 14 months have been difficult but are also marked by uplifting moments that Audrey inspired.

Like when a friend decided to major in photography at college because Audrey would have told her to follow her passion. Orwhen a camp she attendedplanted a tree in her honor. And there's the list of people with an Audrey-related tattoo, which just hit eight.

Meanwhile, Audrey's family turned to her wishes.

Checking off Audrey's lists

Andrew graduated from St. Olaf College in Minnesota in the spring. He said in a phone call with IndyStar that it was his best year, academically and socially, which he attributes to Audrey.

It was also the year he learned that heartbreak can physically hurt and that time heals, but not in a linear way. He learned that moving forward means dealing with as much as you can handle and forgiving yourself for not doing more. Like when someone asks him if he has siblings. Sometimes he talks about Audrey. Sometimes he can only walk away.

Rather than heading straight for graduate school as planned, Andrew took a year off and went back to Minnesota to serve for AmeriCorps Vista, an organization that aims to eradicate poverty. Audrey would be proud of that, he said. He still sees his little sister in dreams, as well as in dragonflies and dogs — both of which she loved.

Jonathan, an obstetrician-gynecologist, is going to Guatemala City to perform surgery in October. He still plays piano, but said he probably wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the list. It would have felt frivolous, he said, if Audrey hadn’t given it validation.

Suzann settled into her new position as an assistant dean at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis — a job that makes her happy. She took the drawing class she and Audrey had signed up for together. It forced her to leave the house and meet new people, she said, which meant confronting that awkward question, “Do you have kids?”

Her response: “I have two kids, it’s just one is away at college and one is away.”

Finding a future among memories

Suzann and Jonathan considered moving but decided to stay. They both go to Audrey’s room sometimes. It still smells like her, Jonathan said.

There’s sadness; her shoes lined up by the bed, a long-deflated “Happy graduation” balloon. But there’s happiness, too; the giant card hanging on the wall that was signed by her friends, the large self-portrait she drew in school, the Polaroid pictures clothespinned to a string on the wall.

The room hasn't become a museum since Audrey died, but rather it evolves in pace with her parents.

Suzann and Jonathan allowed her friends to pick out keepsakes. For herself, Suzann took a delicate gold necklace with the letter “A” on it.

The rest of the stuff is just stuff, Suzann said, left behind the same way it may have been if Audrey had gone to college instead. That will always be Audrey's area, but eventually the stuff won't be needed and will be cleared away.

Someday the room will be remodeled into their home office, Suzann said. When they're ready.

This fall most of Audrey’s self-proclaimed “army” of friends moved away to start college. Over the past year, they invited the Luptons to be intheir prom photos and attendtheir graduation. Suzann said it wasn’t as hard as she thought it’d be to go through those experiences. Audrey already had a graduation, albeit a hastily planned one in a hospital.

Seeing her daughter's friends leave was painful, Suzann said. But she knows each of them carries a piece of Audrey. One sent them photos of her dorm room, with a framed picture of her and Audrey on her desk. Another carried a photo of Audrey around with her for a year, taking pictures with it at the IndianaState Fair, on a hike, hanging out with friends.

"By staying in touch with them," she said, "we are staying in touch with her."

How to live more like Audrey

A few months after Audrey died her family received a letter from an inmate in an Indiana correctional facility who read Audrey’s obituary. His correctional facility had a program where inmates read obituaries and reflected on how people lived their lives.

He wrote the family to say he was going to live more like Audrey.

More like the young girl who could barely move in the hospital, but still tried to push her bedside table out of the way for the nurse.

Who insisted on going outside so she could visit her dog one more time. Who decided it was time to shave her head and wore a wig onlyto make other people feel more comfortable.

Whose heart-rate monitor would slow from disconcertingly high to an easy rhythm when her friends walked in the room.

What would her list have been for the rest of us? Her parents pieced it together without pause:

Figure out who your people are and take care of them.

Go on an adventure.

Pet a dog.

Be kind.

Contact IndyStar reporter Emma Kate Fittes at 317-513-7854 or efittes@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter: @IndyEmmaKate

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