Growing up my mom and I spent many hours at the kitchen table; going over homework, creating highly inappropriate mnemonic devices so I could pass chemistry, and just talking about life in general. In our home it was the, "place where things got done." One of the important lessons that she taught me at that table was that every story should have a
WHY. Here is my
WHY.
**Warning: This is a 15 Kleenex post with a bit of humor too!
On New Year's Eve, leading up to the millennium I received a phone call that would change my life as I knew it. I was at the allergist (yes, after years of allergy shots I still sneeze like machine gun fire), and received a phone call on my cell phone. This was back in the day when you were only supposed to use your phone either for emergencies or to let your parents know that you had safely driven .2 miles to your friend's house, and yes, you would call them before you made the .2 mile return trip home. As soon as I answered my friend's call, I was asked if I was sitting down. I, of course, lied. She then proceeded, through tears, to tell me that my best friend, KT, had cancer (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia). I heard nothing other than KT and cancer.
At 17 years old, I just didn't get it, we were invincible. I hadn't known anyone my age who had been diagnosed with anything serious, much less CANCER I effectively lived in a bubble. One that had just popped.
We would go on to watch KT lose her hair, lose her appetite, struggle through mouth sores, and battle aches and pains unimaginable to all of us. But, the one thing that she never lost was her spirit. KT taught the younger kids in the Pediatric Cancer Unit how to ride their IV stands like skateboards (much to the chagrin of the doctors and nurses). She painted her hospital windows so they were bright and welcoming. She posted every single card and sign she received, creating a mural of color in an incredibly sterile place.
After going into remission, for a short period of time, KT relapsed. The cancer was back with a vengeance. I was a freshman in college and she was about to begin treatment for a second time. I was going to classes and adjusting to dorm life while she was searching for a bone marrow donor. I was going home to visit my family while she was flying out to Seattle to receive a life saving transplant. I was with friends. She was in isolation.
Finally, we found out that the transplant worked! She was healthy. I came home to NJ and we ate food out of the same bag for the first time in over a year (it was like Chrismahanakwanzaka). She looked great, she was sassy, she was KT. Two days later I returned to my Boston apartment to find all of my college friends sitting in silence. Unbeknownst to me, they had received the call saying that over the course of 48 hours KT went from fine to failing. The transplant didn't take, and she was given one month to live.
October 11, 2001 would go down as the worst day of my life. While heaven gained an amazing angel, I lost an amazing friend. I spent much of that year and the one that followed in a blur. I didn't want to talk about it, I didn't want to write about it, and I certainly didn't want to think about it. I dug down and tried my very best to pretend like it didn't happen. But that's the thing with reality, it doesn't go away.
So on a random day in the fall of 2003 I woke up and realized that KT would have hated the person that I had become. She spent her life loving the little things in life, like butterflies and rainbows, and while her life had been cut short, I was wasting mine. So I took action.
And that's where the next chapter begins.
