A tribute to Mary

I got a call from Rob at lunch earlier this week. When I saw his name and picture spring to life on my phone, my mind jumped immediately to expecting that this must be him reaching out to me about some rare bird he was about to chase or perhaps to discuss our own birding plans for the weekend. The truth is that you can never be 100% certain what has motivated the caller to reach out to you even if you can’t help but to naturally migrate toward anticipating what seems most likely. This particular call was one of those times when my cheerful greeting by saying his name as I answered did not align with the tone and mood of the one making the call. This time it wasn’t about what I was expecting at all. Rob had just heard that my former boss Mary had passed away and wanted me to know.

In reality, there was a part of me that knew I would be receiving this news he shared in this call any day now even if it was not what my initial thoughts focused on. Mary had been fighting breast cancer for about 7 years now. After a valiant fight that only saw her stop treatment about two months ago after the cancer had progressed beyond what was being impacted by treatment and her body simply not being able to tolerate the chemo that was being used as one of her primary weapons, Mary finally lost this battle.

Even when you know that the outcome is inevitable. Even when you know the person directly involved has accepted that the outcome is inevitable as Mary had done, it still doesn’t make the sense of sudden loss and grief any less for those that are left behind. There may be some small consolation that there was at least time to prepare as best as her family, friends, and loved ones could and for her to get her affairs in order as when death comes unexpectedly or suddenly, we often aren’t thinking about it as much as Mary must have been when that clock was started two months ago. Perhaps more tragic in my mind at least is that she and her kids had already experienced a similar situation once before when she lost her husband to cancer while her kids were young. Imagine losing both of your parents to this horrible disease without either one of them getting to see: who you grew up to be; who you married; who their grandkids are while you likewise losing that same opportunity to share those experiences with the two people responsible for your life in the first place.

I’ve thought about her husband and her kids a lot these last several days since receiving the news from Rob and I’ve decided that the best way I can honor her memory is to share a couple of things here. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things but even if one person reads this and takes some inspiration from this incredibly brave woman’s life example, it will be someone else Mary ends up impacting like she has me.

The first thing I would like to share are words that her husband shared some from Mary herself. Here is what he shared on the Facebook group page that she had set-up to share her experience fighting cancer. He wrote:

Mary was truly a one of a kind individual. Mary loved to write and was very good at doing so. She would often write pages about something that was on her mind. Often recalling something that happened many year ago. Today I re-read a page she wrote on the passage of her husband Peter. She said that it was that experience that inspired her to live life in the moment. Treasure the ones you love. Be kind and don’t judge.

Jim

I have bolded the part that spoke to me after reading this. We are geared almost from birth to look away to the future. Wait until you are old enough to talk/walk. Wait until you can go to school. Wait until you can drive. Wait until you graduate high school. Wait until you finish college. Wait until you get married. Wait until you have kids. Wait until you retire. Wait. Wait. Wait. All it seems we do sometimes is wait. While the reality is that there is the need to position oneself to take advantage of these expected future milestones, this positioning can come at the expense of the present if we are not mindful. Mary had diligently planned and saved in her 401K for a retirement that cancer ultimately took away from her. If that planning and saving was done entirely at the expense of the present, then there could have been opportunities missed to take advantage of on the journey along the way. Seek the right balance between the future and the present as if nothing else this event should highlight is how none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

The last thing I’d like to share in this tribute is the fulfillment of one of Mary’s last requests of those who knew her. She posted a pair of contrasting pictures on her Facebook blog that were taken about 7 years apart. The first one was just prior to her initial cancer diagnosis and the second one was from just a couple of weeks ago. Mary was all about keeping it real and she did this in large part to highlight just how brutal this fight was. She expressed that cancer kept taking and taking from her until it would ultimately take her life but that even this wasn’t enough for this abuser. It wanted everything including ultimately managing to damage the nerves that controlled Mary’s smile. In the last sentence of her post that day Mary asked a simple request:

When you remember me…. please remember the one with the smile

I will always remember the one with the smile.