The Strongest People I Ever Knew

My best friend Angie was the strongest person I ever knew.

Yes, that's me hiding from the picture.  So long ago.

She fought cancer for five and a half years.  Over and over.  Surgeries.  Chemo.  Experimental treatments.  She went through more than I could ever even describe to you.  And she wasn't alone.

Angie had a type of bone cancer called osteosarcoma.  It's a childhood cancer, it tends to occur in growing bones, especially arms and legs.  It can present in elementary age through adolescence, but it can come back for years into adulthood, despite still being considered a 'childhood' cancer.  Angie was 20 when she died, of a childhood cancer.  She lived that long - to be an adult - because she had some of the best doctors in the world, and because she was a fighter.  She had a strong spirit that, whether she literally or figuratively fell, just got back up and kept on smiling.  Sure, she had her down days.  Everyone does.  But she taught me a lot about what it means to be strong... that sometimes it's just... well, I almost said 'putting one foot in front of the other', and then I laughed, because I realized that would have cracked her up - Angie only had one leg.  Foot jokes were her favorite.  I remember her telling random people that her right foot itched, and they'd look at her, and lack of a right foot, and get this confused look on their face and not know what to say... because they just didn't know her well enough to know how often she made that joke (or that sometimes, it really did itch).  In any case... that sometimes your only choice is to keep going, keep trying, keep breathing... and strength is not the ability to do that, because we don't have a choice, but how you do it.  She did it laughing.  With her friends.

No picture is complete without a goofy face or bunny ears.

Angie met a lot of people in her fight.  She went to camp, went on ski trips, with other kids who had the same or similar types of cancer.  She told me all about them.  Their strength.  Their surgeries.  Their relapses.  The fun, silly, hilarious things they did together.  They were such a huge part of her story.  They understood what she was going through in a way that no one else did, and gave her somebody to talk to about it until the very end.  She took their setbacks harder than her own.  They made endless trips to the hospital less miserable.  Seeing a friend made her day.  And there were those of us like myself who were with her through it all, but we didn't understand what she was going through, not even close.  She needed those friends who did... even though she hated, so much, that they had to suffer through what she did.  She'd have taken every one of their burdens from them if she could have.

I found out tonight that Angie is seeing one of those friends again... he lost his battle to osteosarcoma this week.  I remember her talking about this friend often... that he made her laugh, that she'd run into him at the hospital and it made her day, how much fun they had together, how much they had in common, how much she respected his perspective.  My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of that young man tonight.  I've walked the road of losing someone I love to cancer, and it's a dark, hard road.  Would you please offer up a prayer tonight as well, for all the people this young man left behind?

There are other friends of Angie's who are still fighting.  Friends she admired for their strength, who she saw as stronger than herself (even though they - all the 'cancer kids' - had a kind of strength the rest of us can't even imagine).  Friends who were her first and foremost concern even to the very last moment.  I remember one of them came over the day before she died.  I can't imagine how hard that must have been... I know how hard it was for me.  I also know that neither of us would've been anywhere else.

Angie 'introduced' me... in person or just through her words and stories (which were vivid as she was a writer, and a very good one at that) to some of the strongest people I ever knew.  People who are fighting a battle I can't imagine.  Children, families who are staring cancer in the face and pushing forward.  People like her.  And there are thousands of them.  34 children were diagnosed with cancer today.  34 families will never be the same.  34 more kids will have to learn to be a whole new kind of strong.  And this happens every day.  Every one of those kids is someone's best friend, someone's daughter or son, someone's brother or sister.  They matter.  Their fight matters.

I'm just typing as I think tonight - I'm not sure exactly what point I'm trying to make... but I just want people to see them.  To see their struggle.  To remember their strength.  With every pink ribbon you see, imagine a gold one for childhood cancer.  Support an organization that helps kids with cancer, or funds research for childhood cancer.  Give a hug (or better yet, some chocolate) to the mom of a little one you know who is fighting.  Offer your ear as one to listen, your shoulder as one to cry on.  They are strong, but they are not strong alone.  They learn to lean on the people they love.  It's a battle we don't have to let them fight alone.  It's a battle that I hope and pray to see the day no one else has to fight.  Just... learn from their strength.  And love your kids.  Life is too short not to live it the way Angie did, the way her friends who were also fighting did... with strength and joy and love.