One of my very closest friends passed away this morning. She had had stomach cancer for about three years now, and it was just starting to get a lot worse (It either had or it was very close to reaching Stage 4, I believe). She started radiation therapy just about two weeks ago, and while she, myself, and the few others that knew did our best to keep our spirits up for everyone's sake, we knew she didn't have a whole lot of time left here.
We, even she, all thought that she had at least several months left, maybe a bit more than a year, depending on how things would go. But she left us so suddenly...it wasn't expected by anybody. I'm not certain exactly how she died, but odds are it was related to the cancer in at least some way.
It was like out of some chick flick. I had talked with her no more than 15 hours before she died, and she was fine. Feeling a bit ill, but that's to be expected, given the situation.
She has a lot of friends though. I saw at least twenty other people in person that were completely devastated by this, and I spoke to another ten or so people over the phone about it. She was one of the most loving, giving people anybody could ever meet. I could say she was a sister to the whole lot of us, but with the way she helped us all through tough times, she was practically a mother. Hell, several of us in my club called her the Den Mother.
She'd been through so much hell in life. She was almost too nice, that the "right" people would take advantage of her quite frequently...Other health problems, living on the streets for a year or two...And yet she'd always help anybody that ever needed it, no matter what her situation was. She was a paramedic, she worked in a women's shelter, she was the President of my school's GSA club, a social worker...Just an amazing person.
There's at least two "bright" sides to this, at least. The obvious one being that she's no longer sick or suffering through illness or the whims of the assholes of the world that'd take advantage of her. And the other, while it's a more personal thing, I'm so glad it happened. Yesterday, just before I left my school to go meet up with another set of friends, I said what (obviously) turned out to be my last words to her, and they were "I love you so much."
I'm sure she knew it even if I hadn't said it yesterday afternoon, but still. I'm glad I said it.
