Just received news that a childhood friend has passed on. Fallen to metastatic breast cancer, most likely a result of treatments for Hodgkin’s disease, aka lymph cancer, which she had dealt with for more than a decade. Stephanie was in her mid-30s. Stephanie and her sister and me and my brother used to play together when we were neighbors in Santa Clara in the 70s, and our families were friends. Aside from a reunion in the 90s, we had mostly fallen out of touch. I had heard that she had beaten the disease a while ago, but apparently it returned with a vengeance. Stephanie (on the left, above, with her daughter and mother) was living a very holistic life in Hawaii with her boyfriend and their young daughter Aurora. Her mother tells me that Stephanie faced death with total acceptance and love, and that her guru guided her out of this world. Of course I find myself wishing we had stayed in better touch through the years. Blessings, angel. You were a very bright star. You still are. The s’mores were great.
Stephen Levine, who has wrote often and eloquently about dying and grieving for the dead, speaks about “healing into death”. That sounds very apt here.
My condolences.
Scot, Thank you for your blog post. I knew Stephanie on Maui (we were in a class together) and I have something of hers (a rare book). For years, I wondered what happened to Stephanie. I would like to be able to give the book to her mother or her daughter. I would love to be able to contact them – could you let me know a way to get in touch with Stephanie’s mom? Thank.
Oh wonderful! (sorry I’m just seeing this now). I’ll get back to you with contact info asap.