What it Takes

This disease...the one I have? The one whose name I get sick of saying, hearing, reading...having. I hate it and what it does. It changes lives, it takes lives. Young, vibrant, just-starting-out lives. Cutting short their supposed-to-be-in-the-prime-of-their-life lives.

Lori at Too Sexy for My Hair recently passed away at the age of 31. She is survived by her mother and even her grandmother. I am sorry, but that's just not the order in which things should go.

I never met or spoke to Lori, but she was a fellow short, brunette, star-loving Sagittarius cancer warrior; so I sort of feel a certain kinship with her.

Like a lot of us, she was a wife, daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend. Like a lot of us she never got a chance to be a mother, but I suspect (like a lot of us) she would have been an awesome one.

She was beautiful, strong, brave, and like a lot of young (and old) cancer patients...irreverent and pissed off at her sucky fate.
Lori's Too Sexy for My Hair blog and flickr group have helped and united a lot of people. Her words and strength have inspired me and countless others.

The following is what she wrote after she posted the above picture of herself receiving chemo:

Moments after I posted the picture I thought, OH GOD LORI, What were you thinking? That's a horrible picture of myself. I ridiculed myself. I saw the weight I have gained, the lack of eyebrows, eyelashes, and the thinning of my hair and thought what a mess I have become. Now, just after writing the above, I say to myself, "it's not what you did to yourself, it's what the chemo did to you." Then the anger in me arises and then I say, "Fuck Cancer." "I want my life back"..."Why me?"....But you know, I think I am slowly learning the answer to the "why me?"

I totally get that. I am a bit behind Lori in this journey of ours, but I too think I am slowly learning the answer to "why me?"...part of which, in my mind, is why not me?

When she passed, her husband Cary said that a beloved friend of theirs said her body couldn't hold her down any longer.

I love that...and this is gonna sound kinda crazy, but in some ways I envy that freedom. My body now holds me down. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for what I can still do, but extremely frustrated and pissed off by all that I can no longer do.

As Lori said about a flickr friend's father when he passed away...

"Be free from your pain and rest now."

I wrote the following in response to the picture below. Others commented that they saw suffering, pride, beauty, strength, courage, focus, determination:

I see all of what the others see, and more.

It takes an incredible amount of strength to keep walking through those doors, sitting in those waiting rooms, smiling & laughing because others need that from you, going through all of the tests, getting stuck with all of those needles knowing that what flows through them could perhaps maybe possibly save/prolong your life, or it could eventually potentially exponentially kill you. At the very least, you know it's going to make you sick. You know it's coming, so you plan your so-called life around it.

You wonder, 'how long can I keep up this fight? Is it worth it?'. You are so very tired. So sick of not being normal, not being able to be your age (even if you've never really acted your age), having your youth taken from you. So mad that you won't get to grow old gradually and gracefully, that you will have to take disability instead of retirement.

So tired of feeling like a bad aunt, employee, friend, daughter, sister, and person in general because you're sick and/or tired so much of the time. So tired of feeling like you are a worry or burden to everyone who loves you. So sad/mad that your life is no longer your own, your body is no longer yours, that your beloved freedom has been taken away.

So scared that you are going to die. And not only die, but that you might just be one of the ones to make every parents' nightmare a reality for yours. So scared that you will lose your strength, your dignity. That one day they'll say those dreaded words..."we've done all we can". So scared that you won't live long enough to see a cure. So scared. Just so very scared.

I get it. I see that in Lori's face. I recognize it, it's what I see when I look in the mirror.

I am so VERY sorry she's gone. She is free now.

And now, she truly is a star.

I don't know her favorite song of theirs, but here is Lori's favorite group (and one of my favorite songs of theirs):