She doesn't know me, but I remember meeting her some time in college. She was a friend of a friend. An absolutely gorgeous blond-haired, blue-eyed Southern belle.
Several months ago, I saw a comment from her on our mutual friend's Facebook page. I recognized her name, so I clicked on it.
Her profile was a mess of well wishes. Statuses about chemo, doctors' prognoses, prayers. I couldn't believe it. She had leukemia.
Twenty-five years old and she had leukemia. And there I was, that same day, worrying about my low paycheck and wondering if we were going to find a house to move into before we left for vacation. I was sitting on my couch, mindlessly checking a ridiculously meaningless website.
And she had leukemia.
I was shocked. From the looks of it, she was going through the works - intense chemo. I thought about her on random days after that. What she must be going through, the pain her husband must be feeling, how she probably couldn't even enjoy a good bowl of ice cream without feeling nauseated.
I've watched enough people go through chemo to know what it does to your body. What it does to your soul. It kills you softly, sometimes even worse than the cancer.
Today, I thought about her again, just like I had on all those random days. But this time, I thought I'd see how she was doing instead of just wondering. I got on Facebook, searched her name, and while the hourglass spun, I got scared that maybe I'd find a page lost in space. One like Brooke's - one that lingers idle after someone dies.
Page loaded.
Status - "remission rocks. :)"
It is amazing how people you hardly know, people who couldn't pick you out in a crowd, can have such an impact on your life.
There are other people like that - other people who have taken my breathe away, influenced me without even knowing it. I bet they have no idea what they've done.
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