A mom's message of living, loving and laughing as time is running out.
In 2013, Heather McManamy, a mother and loving wife from Wisconsin, was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the age of 36-years, she passed away from the disease.
In her waning days, she spent a lot of time thinking and contemplating life. Before she passed, she wrote her husband Jeff a touching and hysterical letter. She asked him to post it on Facebook for her, and ever since he posted it on December 15, 2015, it has gone viral with more than 102k shares on facebook alone.
She opens with the bad news, but quickly moves on to the more positive angle:
So…I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is, apparently, I’m dead. Good news, if you’re reading this, is that you are most definitely not (unless they have wifi in the afterlife). Yes, this sucks. It sucks beyond words, but I’m just so damn glad I lived a life so full of love, joy and amazing friends. I am lucky to honestly say that I have zero regrets and I spent every ounce of energy I had living life to the fullest. I love you all and thank you for this awesome life.
She offered a fresh perspective on how to comfort her daughter:
Please, please, please do not tell Brianna that I am in heaven. In her mind, that means that I chose to be somewhere else and left her. In reality, I did everything I could to be here with her, as there is nowhere, NOWHERE, I would rather be than with her and Jeff. Please don’t confuse her and let her think for one second that is not true. Because, I am not in heaven. I’m here. But no longer in the crappy body that turned against me. My energy, my love, my laughter, those incredible memories, it’s all here with you...Please tell Brianna stories, so she knows how much I love her and how proud of her I will always be (and make me sound waaay cooler than I am).
And she reminded everyone that cancer is, in fact, the loser:
And don’t say I lost to cancer. Because cancer may have taken almost everything from me, but it never took my love or my hope or my joy. It wasn’t a “battle” it was just life, which is often brutally random and unfair, and that’s simply how it goes sometimes. I didn’t lose, dammit. The way I lived for years with cancer is something I consider a pretty big victory.
And finally, she told everyone to turn up in her honor:
If you go to my funeral, please run up a bar tab that would make me proud. Heck, blast “Keg on My Coffin” and dance on the bar for me (because there had better be a dance party at some point). Celebrate the beauty of life with a kickass party because you know that’s what I want and I believe that in a weird way, I will find a way to be there too (you know how much I hate missing out on fun). I look forward to haunting each one of you, so this isn’t so much a goodbye as it is see you later.
What can we say, this is one women's extraordinary response to terminal illness, and we stand in awe. Its a difficult emotion to express when tears roll down your eyes and smile escapes your lips, to read a beautiful teastment of true love and a life cherised.
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