So… not the greatest week. On Thursday, my cancer bestie passed away. She has been living with stage 4 cancer for around 5 years, so it was pretty exhausting. We had talked about death together plenty of times. It doesn’t matter if you are expecting it or if it happens suddenly. The people you leave behind still have the same amount of grief. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to continue to push forward day after day with this painful, exhausting disease. She was so powerful, strong, and stubborn.
We because friends because we met at a cancer camp, but stayed friends for any other normal reasons for friendship. It wasn’t about the cancer. It was about laughing, adventuring, and connecting. On several occasions, she told me our relationship was somehow different than just regular friends. We would have a blast together, get annoyed by each other, be really honest with each other, and even got into a fight that resulted in a small break in communication for a few months. We both knew it would pass, and of course it did.
The adventures we went on included, surfing, paddle boarding, white water rafting, camping, skydiving, and a forever reminder…getting tattoos. We taught each other our favorite crafts, exchanged silly gifts, brought in 2017 new years, ate Mexican food, told our life stories, and connected deeply. Once we figured out that we could just communicate by sending GIFs, Bitmojis, emojis, silly videos and pictures, that became the norm. Becky’s love for animals was so so huge. I would send her animal stuff and anything we thought was funny. On several occasions, my phone would ding 20 times in a row indicating that I was receiving messages. It got to the point that words were not too necessary and we could “get” each other just with these little exchanges.
When you meet someone with advanced cancer, you are pretty sure of how they will die. You just have no idea when. It is different when you know it is going to happen. We have been friends for 2.5 years and I knew the whole time. Neither of us knew when. We cherished all of our times together and always made plans for the next time. Neither of us were afraid to do that. I like to think I consider all of my good friends as gifts I could lose at any moment. I truly believe that I cherish most of the moments I have with the people with whom I am close. I never forget to hug tight, say I love you, and remind them of how great it is to have them in my life. That is just who I am. I know part of that comes from losing my brother at such an early age. I feel so lucky to have that perspective. No mater how hard life can be, I don’t have any regret or fear that people will not know how much I love them.