I woke up this morning with a lump in my belly, and not rested. Last night, I learned that an old friend from my days in Yellowknife died.
Younger than me, Amanda was taken from us by ovarian cancer. She leaves behind a daughter, who by now is about the age her mother and I were as we clowned around in her mother's basement, dancing to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, and later, thrashing around to Nirvana's anthem, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with our friend Crystal.
Where Crystal was ballsy and the ringleader, and I was the overly-sensitive goofball, Amanda was the open, caring one who loved any reason to smile. Along with the totally-intense energy of Julie, we four forged a bond that somehow became the Twisted Sisters, and in time, we shared this bond with other friends. There were times of strife and fights, but through it all, we knew someone had our backs.
As friendships are sometimes wont to do, we started going out separate ways, as we all started to pursue our individual interests and talents, and we started to grow into the women we would all become. For Amanda, that meant bringing a beautiful baby girl into the world, coping with the tragedy of her mother's passing, and quite importantly, finding her voice in music and performing. Through her music, Amanda touched a lot of lives.
I got back in touch with Amanda through facebook a couple of years ago, and it's pained me to see from this far away that she faced the scourge of cancer, but I was so relieved that she had a massive community of people behind her, helping her fight.
Amanda is not the first person I've lost to cancer, but her death is the first one outside of my family whose death has shaken me to my core. Amanda, a piece of my heart belongs to you, my Twisted Sister.
A cure for cancer...
...Wish you were here.
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