A few weeks after my surgery I lost a good friend to her battle with Breast Cancer. This beautiful woman, we will call her Lynn, was someone you couldn’t help looking up to. Someone you loved to be around. And despite the fact that we only saw each other a few times a year I cared deeply about her. But more than just the things that made her wonderful were the things that connected us. We both battled Crohn’s disease, we both were diagnosed with breast cancer when our daughters were very young, but my favorite connection is that we both love to sew; and our favorite thing to do is sew things for other people. For the sole purpose of the feeling you get when you sew a dress for a little girl and she can’t stop smiling because she feels like a princess. It was these things that made us so similar that made her funeral so difficult to attend. I sat in the church pew with surgery drains still painfully in place. I cried for the loss of a dear friend as well as for the fear of what lay ahead for me. As those closest to Lynn began o tell stories of her life I realized these stories were my stories. It wasn’t just an illusion, my husband felt it too. At the grave site my father in-law (one of the sweetest men on the face of the earth) hugged me so tight it hurt. I lost it, I had to step away to compose myself. Lynn never complained, at least not in public anyway. I wanted to fight my battle with the courage that she had. As I sit here typing I still try to muster up the strength that she had. I am grateful to have known her and my life was blessed to have her example. May we always remember those who went before us and strive to live in such a way that would make them proud.
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