To my aunt Ru:

My aunt Ru, who was fighting a long battle with cancer, passed away on Monday.
And today, we said goodbye.
I don't cry in front of people, ever, but for Ruth this was different.
Our souls are not connected "just" as aunt and niece...there was always something more
and I love her with everything I have.

My family asked me to post the speech that I gave during her funeral.
I cried like a little schoolgirl for 90% of it,
but everyone told me how beautiful it was.
I know Ru loved it, too (but she would've told me "Stop crying, ya big weenie!")


To my incredible aunt Ru: I love you for so many reasons.

I love you because of your bright sense of humor, sarcasm, and wittiness. You are the biggest smart-ass I've ever known* and you could turn any situation into a funny one.

I love you because you were never afraid to say what you thought, how you felt, or to stand up for someone. People always knew where they stood with you because of your valiant honesty.

I love you because you were the only babysitter my brother and I ever had who would let us stay up late and watch Beavis & Butthead. And when I was young and afraid of sleepovers, you would tuck me in the same way my mother would.

I love you because of the letters we used to send to one another--always covered in stickers, glitter, and confetti. We would always try to out-funny one another.

I love you because, no matter how bad things got, you never made it all about yourself. You were always trying to brighten someone else's day.

Most of all, I love you because you are absolutely everything I want to be as a woman: strong, funny, smart, caring, and beautiful in every way.

I know that many of us still feel like this is a bad dream...that it isn't real. That we'll call her cell phone and hear her voice on the other end. Or in my case, that I'll go into my kitchen and find Ru's latest card, with stickers all over it, along with a fresh tray of her famous eggplant parmasean.

But, it's so important to remember that she's still with us. Whenever we see beauty in the world, we'll think of her. She'll visit us in our dreams, keep an eye out (or maybe two eyes now) for our safety. She'll live on not just in our memories, but in our perseverance and ambitions. And most of all, she'll forever be the sarcastic voice inside our heads.

I love you, my cup of soups. And I hope we're all going to make you proud.
<3 

*No, I didn't call her a smart-ass in church. I'm classier than that--that sentence was originally omitted :) I did say Butthead though, which I suppose isn't much classier.

Cancer

When I was in grade school,
my best friend was a girl whose father was fighting cancer.
The fight started out just as most do:
a terrified family, but still one with lots of hope and love,
daughters never imagining that they would not dance with their father on their wedding day

And then it progresses
and the father begins to live on the living room couch
and the daughters begin to cry more frequently
and the mother's stress reaches breaking limit,
but still...maybe, he will beat this.

And then the maybes start getting smaller, feebler,
crossing into the realm of "wishful thinking"
and my friend would take frequent trips to the school bathroom just to break down
and I would let her cry on my shoulder
while she told me that they were already designing his headstone.

But, although I was a witness to much of her suffering,
and I was the first one she called when he passed away peacefully,
and I kept her company at the viewing,
and stared at the corpse of a man who was once the strongest person she knew,
one thought plagued me throughout the entire journey,
one that I wisely never voiced to her:
Isn't it better, though? To at least be prepared for the end? 


And now, after all these years, I have my answer: No, it's not. Not in the slightest.

Cancer takes somebody you love, somebody strong and unwavering,
and tortures them right in front of your eyes.
it is not quick and painless;
it is agonizing test results,
flooding their body with countless treatments that poison them from within.

It goes from having your fists in the air, saying
WE WILL BEAT YOU, CANCER, YOU WILL NOT WIN
Wearing pink head-to-toe with your head held high
A family thinking: this, too, shall pass!

And then it downgrades...
maybe this chemo will work,
maybe this radiation will do it in,
maybe this MRI will show a miracle.
'Maybe, maybe, maybe'

And then your maybes turn into ashes
and you stare at the ashes,
stare more intently than you have ever stared in your life,
and think, what can I build out of this? How can I make this into something whole again?

"At least you got to say goodbye"
"At least they knew how much they were loved"
these things don't matter when you are watching someone you love die.

the event of losing somebody you love,
whether it is long and agonizing,
or as fast as a shooting star in a cloudy sky,
is equally painful, equally unfathomable,
and unforgivably agonizing, no matter the circumstances.

Because even when you're facing the ashes of those ever-lingering maybes,you can't possibly be prepared for them.
Even when they're all around you, covering you in their dust,
you can't imagine that a day will come where the family parties will always be one short
you can't fathom losing someone who has been a constant in your life
since before you took your first breath

And saying goodbye is not a privelege,
because it's such an unthinkable act, such a terrible word,
and no amount of time can ever prepare you for it.

 

Hello..

For a long time I've been thinking that I need to start writing more.
So I decided to start blogging about the huge amount of random things that go through my mind on a daily basis. Hey, I'm an introvert; we tend to think a lot.
I have stories, I've learned a lot of lessons, and I read a lot...why not make something worth reading? Or at least something worth expressing?

So, hi! My name is Laura and here's what you should probably know as background:
-I graduated from college last year. I thought I'd be in my own apartment with a wonderfully dull corporate job by now, but hey everything happens for a reason right?
-I have a crazy, rare bone disease and I had 10 surgeries in the span of 13 years. If that doesn't make a girl grow up fast and give her an appreciation for life, I don't know what does.
-I have plenty of dating stories...most of them hilarious nightmares
-I love animals (I'm a vegetarian--no, not a crazy one) and will probably post obnoxious amounts of pictures of my increasingly greying labs.
-Also, I bake cupcakes/cakes and it's one thing that I'm relatively good at. I'll be posting photos and recipes too!

So, if you do end up reading this by some chance, I hope you enjoy my dogs/cupcakes/stories/thoughts and don't think I'm too crazy :) Enjoy!