She started out her life with cancer by blogging about what it was like to face such as horrible diagnosis. Wife, mother of young children, daughter, sister, and friend to so many, Michelle had no intention of allowing cancer to suck the joy out of life. She was going to beat this thing, come hell or high water. You know what? She did.
Too often we hear that people battled cancer and the cancer finally got the upper hand, resulting in death. Too often it sounds like they failed because they were weaker than the disease. The words "brave" and "courageous" can be found in obituaries in every newspaper around the globe. But battling cancer isn't what makes someone brave or courageous. Battling the demons that stop us from living with cancer is the real test of the soul. We wage war with an enemy that steals our humanity as it marches through the human body. Cancer is a weapon of mass destruction. It terrifies us all with its mighty power, especially when it's an aggressive, untreatable kind of cancer cell that invades. But that's not the foe we need to fight, first and foremost.
Cancer cells destroy -- that's true. In lucky times, the right mix of treatments and drugs sometimes halt cancer in its tracks. Then again, cancer can be sneaky. Those cells can hide in the body, only to resurface at the most inopportune times. We never know which way the cells will mutate, or where they might show up next, or whether there's a treatment that will be effective. That black cloud of uncertainty hangs heavy over the lives of cancer survivors and the people who love them. All that darkness can take its toll on the soul, drowning us in a sea of sorrow for what could have been, what might have been, what never was.
It's easy to hate cancer, to give in and give up when we first hear that horrible diagnosis, to surrender before we've even begun to understand the real enemy. When we allow our fear of cancer to decide how we live our lives, we give up our personal power, self-determination, and above all, our right to choose to live our lives out loud.
Michelle taught me much about personal courage and bravery. Right up to her last few days, she fought hard to remain the wonderful young woman we adored. That mattered to her, even in hospice care. Imagine feeling like you've let down the people who love you because you just don't have the strength, the energy, the power to rise above the cancer any more. You want to go on giving, but you're just too exhausted to do it.
Michelle DID win because she allowed us to join her on her journey through a war zone where cancer is a weapon of mass destruction. Every time she was knocked down, she stood up. Every time she lost her footing, she got to her knees and then to her feet, dusted herself off, and continued on. Cancer never took that brave, courageous spirit from her. As the power of those destructive cells wreaked their havoc on her body, her spirit grew. Love became more important. Sweet moments mattered more than sorrow, more than hate. There was no such thing as an ordinary day. She chose to make her time on this earth count for something.
Michelle could have hated her life, could have raged against the unfairness of it all. She chose to encourage all of us to grab the light. She picked her path up the mountain, and in doing so, became a wise teacher. Michelle DID win.
None of us who ever had the chance to meet this dynamic, determined, dedicated young woman will ever be the same because we choose to remember and honor her. She lives on through us, through the things we learned vicariously as she battled to save her psyche and her soul against all odds. No virtual reality, no video game ever produced a fighter quite like Michelle. She was the real deal. She was a valiant warrior in a too-real war that doesn't have a reset button.
And she did save her psyche, staying focused on what mattered even as doubt pushed at the door. She did rescue her soul from that dark, endless night by growing in power as a human being. She did become extraordinary, this woman with the soul of a warrior -- not because she fought a battle with cancer, but because she lived in spite of cancer. Who would she be when the dust settled? That mattered.
Too often we see death as failure. We forget that each of us is mortal, that with every passing day we move closer to the end of our own lives. Sometimes we're so focused on that, we forget to live. We squander our hours in meaningless activities. We hold back our unspoken thoughts, hold in our deeply felt emotions, hold ourselves off from really engaging in life. Michelle made those moments count. She was "working the room" everywhere she went, networking with hearts and minds on her crusade to make life matter. Michelle DID win.
Cancer never took the love out of her. She worked hard to make sure her children would be safe after her beautiful spirit departed from her body. She wanted her family to go on believing in sunshine, blue skies, and good times. She wanted everyone to thrive in her absence, not fall apart. You could see it in the things she chose to do. She was building memories to keep the hearts above the high water mark, to keep the souls she loved swimming when the tears came. And they have come.
Yes, Michelle's spirit departed, but she is everywhere around us. She's there, in the random act of a kindness shown by a stranger, in a hearty laugh that reminds us we have this glorious moment in time, in an outstretched hand when the heart is heavy. We need to recognize that same wonderful spirit in others and appreciate it, because that's what Michelle taught us to do.
Michelle DID win. Our lives are richer for those beautiful smiles, the touching words, the moments that she chose goodness over evil, kindness over cruelty, generosity over stinginess. The world was a better place because she lived. The light she brought to this earth grew brighter as her spirit faced an enemy that wielded cancer as a weapon of mass destruction. The real enemy in the cancer fight is apathy. There was nothing dispassionate about Michelle. She cared about everything and everyone.
As we now go on facing life without Michelle, we should not think we have lost that beautiful spirit. She sowed the seeds in each of us who yielded to her joie de vivre. Her own light faded when she left us, but she lit our souls with her fiery passion for love, for life. It is up to us to feed that flame, to carry on that legacy in the way we choose to live. We honor her by remembering that apathy, disinterest, and dispassion are the real enemy. Live in the moment. Embrace love and let it fill your soul with its warmth. Seek joy and don't stop until you find it. Demand all this from yourself and don't take no for an answer. Burn brightly, as Michelle did, even in the face of that horrible weapon of mass destruction, cancer. Don't let your light go out. Long after you are gone, your spirit will live, as Michelle's does, in all the people whose lives you touch.
Rest in peace, dear Michelle. And thank you for being you.
