Light the Night

Tonight we walked in The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night walk. This was our second year walking in memory of my good friend Marta.

Walking in memory...I hate saying that. It's so not what I want to be doing. What I want is to walk WITH Marta, in honor of Marta, not in memory of Marta. But Marta lost her battle 18 months ago now when a condition related to her years of treatment for Hodkin Disease ended up being Marta's last battle.

Some of you who will read this knew her personally and I don't have to tell you what an amazing person she was. For those of you who didn't know Marta let me tell you a little bit about my friend.

She never complained, about anything. Not the chemo, not the stem cell transplant, not about losing her hair, not about being in horrible pain from the open sores in her mouth from the massive doses of chemo, not being diagnosed and battling cancer 3 separate times, NOTHING.

It was Marta who was comforting me when she told me the cancer was back, again. We were at work and I came to see how her test results had turned out-she looked at me, smiled and said "it's back." I immediately started crying and she stood up, gave me a hug and told me "Don't cry, it's going to be alright." Here my friend was faced with having to battle cancer again and SHE is comforting me!

So that's a little bit about Marta and who we walked to CELEBRATE tonight. Marta may very well have lost her battle with cancer but this woman lived every single minute of her life. So tonight we spread Marta's wings and let her spirit soar.

I miss my friend. I miss her laugh. I miss her smile. I miss her leaving me notes on my computer when she'd stop by my office to say "hi"-I actually still have one of them and after all this time still have it on my bulletin board above my desk. I miss her keeping me grounded. I miss going to eat at Las Delicious with her. I miss her wearing Chanel open-toed, high heels in the snow. I miss her cooking. I miss her hugs. I miss talking to her about everything and anything. I miss my friend.