Michele.

Michele.

Today, I found out that my friend and former LLS coworker Michele Larson has passed away. I told you about her a while ago, when it was totally unfair that she had developed a secondary cancer, leukemia, as a result of her treatment for her original lymphoma. Since that post, she has had not one, but two additional battles with cancer. Four total. Four. My heart and my stomach ache thinking about the struggles her body knew.

Here is a video of Michele (embedded below), interviewed for a program called "Understanding Cancer."



Maybe in that short clip you might be able to begin to see how beautiful, strong, calm, inspiring, remarkable, and creative she was. She's the kind of person that you would interrupt mid-conversation to tell them how great and cute they are. I had seen this video quite a few months ago when it was first published, and watching it again just now as I posted the video was really hard. Her family members used Michele's email account to send out the details for the services, and a simple "Michele" and this video link were still in her old signature file, along with a quote about faith and impossibleness. That too, was really hard to see.

But, god, you're supposed to be ready for these things, right? When someone is in her fourth battle with something that could very well have killed her the first time around (and almost did), shouldn't you expect her to lose her fight at some point? Shouldn't you be relieved and peaceful that her body is no longer feeling or sourcing her pain? I don't know, I just don't know. All bets are off when you're as young as Michele. All bets are off when you're my friend.

I just sat here for about 10 minutes staring at the screen trying to think of something moving and well-written to write here about Michele, but then it just made me feel so sick to my stomach, like I would be getting some artistic jollies off of her tragedy so I'm just going to leave it alone.

I am so sad. I miss her.