As my dear friend Sharon reminded me, “You don’t always realize you’re making memories when you are.”

I was stunned and am heartbroken. My friend died last week. She’d been fighting cancer for more than a year, but she had been doing so well. I didn’t know about the recurrence. I was gutted when her husband called.

Stephanie excelled at the brave, positive face. She hadn’t publicly shared about her cancer. I felt guilty when I looked back and saw it had been more than a month since we talked, a month that had flown by for me, while my friend was receiving tough news. Tough news that she didn’t share.

I get it and am trying to be okay with it; we weren’t best-friends-close and knew we each had those people in our lives. But I hope she knew I loved her and valued her friendship. I loved the lunches and laughter she, Diana, and I shared. When we got together, it was like no time had passed, even when it was more than a month. We talked about having more lunch opportunities when she retired. Fun times we’ll never share.

Years ago, when Stephanie learned we shared a love of Brach’s (and only Brach’s) candy corn, she would bring a bag to my office (or send it, well-wrapped, through interoffice mail) at the first candy corn sighting of the year. I will forever more think of her when I eat candy corn. 

Soon after I announced my daughter’s engagement, Stephanie showed up at my door bearing gifts: a coffee mug that reads, “Don’t Mess with Me. I’m the M.O.B., Mother of the Bride” and a matching Father of the Bride mug with a big bar code. As we laughed, she said, “these are the only gifts anyone will get you for this wedding.” She had just started losing her hair and was sporting a cute hat in pure Stephanie-style.

Our history goes back nearly 25 years. Stephanie worked for the Foundation of the hospital at which I was PR and Marketing Director. Those two functions don’t always mix well, but we did. I remember how proud she was to show me the Foundation wall at our new cancer center. “Hope is the thing with feathers” was inscribed, a perfect sentiment from one of my favorite poets. All these years later, that cancer center was a place of hope for Stephanie. Driving her to and from a treatment was not the return either of us wanted.

I hated to see her leave the hospital Foundation when she did. Several years later, she rejoined another former teammate at Good Shepherd Hospice. By then, I had retired, and she was instrumental in my volunteer and freelance involvement with hospice. When she left, I grieved a bit, but we stayed in touch, meeting up when schedules allowed. And then, at the end, Good Shepherd Hospice cared for her. Her husband said though everything happened fast, the team who stayed with her was wonderful.

Most of Stephanie’s work life was dedicated to the American Cancer Society. I’ll admit, it’s hard for me to reconcile that her professional mission was defeating cancer and that cancer took her all too soon.

But Stephanie was a life force, and her life’s mission was found in doing good. In her obituary, her sister wrote, “And, by leaving us on March fourth, she quietly gave us that final set of instructions: March forth and do all the good things, big and small, to continue to change the world.”

Thank you for being a bright light in my world, Stephanie. I’m sure going to miss you.

*Photo: my daughter, Stephanie, and me at a hospital foundation event many years ago.