Choose Happiness – Kirsty at Momedy

Tuesday, November 4, 2008, by Leigh Anne & Sherra

We have designated Tuesday as a day where we will have different women share “Moments & Memories” in their lives.

We plan to feature women from all walks of lives – it may be in the form of an interview or as a guest writer. The column on Tuesday will be centered around our word of the month. We’d love to feature you as a guest writer. Qualifications: No experience necessary…just be willing to share a great moment or memory with other women. Send us an email and we’ll schedule a date. Our guest writers do not necessarily have to have a website or a blog as we want iLashGirls to be a place where every woman has a voice!

A big welcome to Kirsty. Leigh Anne and Kirsty struck up a virtual friendship through their blogs. Kirsty writes about her family life over at her blog Momedy. Just like Leigh Anne and Sherra, Kirsty has four children!

Kirsty emailed us several months ago to share a beautiful story about her friend Stacey. We knew that Stacey’s story was perfect for this month as we focus on the word Happiness. Stacey didn’t wait for happiness or hope for happiness – she chose happiness. Please enjoy being inspired by Stacey’s courage, strength and desire to live each day to the fullest. Thank you to Kirsty for sharing this amazing story with us.

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Happiness

I met Stacey more then eight years ago. We were all part of an online “expecting club” for moms with babies due around the same time. As the years went by, our babies grew and our group grew closer. We have come “together” practically every day.

Daily we log on and share the mundane and the marvelous with each other. We complain, we encourage, we cheer, sometimes we argue. We have become a sisterhood.

One day in April 2003, Stacey was no longer just like any of us. After having a major seizure while pregnant with twins, she was told that she had a malignant brain tumor and the prognosis was extremely grim. She had a mere matter of months to live.

She was 29 years old. She was the mother of four children, expecting her fifth and sixth. She had already endured the still birth of a baby boy the year before and was told that one of the twins she was carrying had passed away in utero. She would have brain surgery while she was seven months pregnant and would be awake throughout the operation. She remained undaunted.

Stacey submitted cheerfully to whatever treatment might prolong her life. The night before her brain surgery, I called her and listened to her express her nervousness but mostly she laughed and made jokes.

She was realistic about what lay ahead, describing her treatment plan in detail but she sounded more excited then nervous. This was the first step towards getting her life back to normal and she was happy about that.

She was frustrated by the limitations of not being able to drive or go to school, but she did not wallow in that frustration, instead she turned it into resolve. She wrote:

“I have decided to stop fighting for life, and just LIVE (not that I won’t seek out every possible medical treatment). You can focus too much on all of the treatments and it can consume you. If I do nothing else with my life and die just trying to save it, I hope I can inspire people to live life like you mean it! Take every chance.”

True to her word, she did not let the treatments consume her but she fought, and for a long time she prevailed. She beat her cancer into remission 3 times while enduring seizures, pneumonia, chemo, steroid drugs that bloated her and made her gain huge amounts of weight and even going into a coma for three days as the result of an infection.

While she was fighting she lived.

She decided that she would keep going to college. She wanted to be a doctor and she was determined to complete her education. When she was no longer allowed to drive she begged people to give her rides to class. She maintained straight A’s.

She sewed Halloween costumes for her 5 children, participated in their activities, and was first and foremost a mom. And this made her happy. She rejoiced in the privilege of seeing her children grow up.

Entries such as this were common,

“The point is, it is a miracle that I am still here. I don’t know why I am, but I am. The only thing I ever prayed for was to get to see Saylor take her first steps… I potty trained her!”

To know how much she delighted in being able to perform a task that so many mothers actively dread was humbling.

Later as she was fighting for her life a third time, she endured the devastating betrayal of those closest to her. She battled a divorce and she fought to keep her children in her custody. She dealt with it as she had dealt with everything – she did not let it knock her down. She forgave many times, knowing that it was the only way for her to have the peace that she needed.

In my blog tribute to her after she died, I compared her to one of those kiddy punching bags. Perhaps not the most elegant comparison but I could not think of anything more accurate. You can hit them for all they are worth but they will always pop right back up.

I have a firm belief that it was her determination to squeeze every last moment out of her life with her children that allowed her to live for years beyond what anyone thought she would.

One day I finally got to meet Stacy in person. She had actually paid someone to drive her and her kids more then 14 hours to a blog reunion in Canada. She had a seizure just after she arrived.

When I told her that I could not believe that she had made the arduous trip in her condition, she said, in a very matter of fact way, “Well, I don’t know how many Julys I have left, and I just had to meet you all.”

She was all about grabbing the moment. She lived the way we all should – with gusto and as though each day was her last.

In her last weeks of life she was confined to a wheelchair, swollen from the steroids, struggling to talk, with short term memory loss and in extreme pain. The Make-A-Wish Foundation made it possible for her to go to Disneyworld with her kids. She was beyond thrilled. This had been a long time dream of hers. They had always believed it was a magical place and she desperately wanted her children to have a care-free vacation with her, to make some memories away from sick-beds and hospitals.

More sick then most of us can imagine, she went on that trip. She participated in everything that she possibly could, enduring all her discomforts in Florida’s extreme summer heat.

At the visitation before her funeral, I asked her mom if she thought Stacey had felt well enough to enjoy the experience. She said, “Oh, I’m quite sure she felt absolutely awful and she loved every minute of it”.

One of the photos from Disney bear testament to that. It is a picture of all of the children on a ride. They are clearly thrilled. Far in the background, if you look closely, you can see Stacey in her wheelchair, barely able to hold her head up. She is grinning from ear to ear. It was an expression of pure joy. She was watching a dream come true.

Stacey had one of the hardest lives I have ever known, she was also one of the most upbeat people I have ever known. There were many reasons for her to be bitter, depressed and defeated but she knew those emotions would rob her of precious time and she did not have enough to spare. The letter she wrote to be read at her funeral started with these words…

“Don’t cry for me, I have gone to a better place. I have had fun, living this life, and have brought five children into the world to carry on my legacy. I didn’t intend to die this early, but I’m glad for everyone that I have touched in my short life. I have fought through many things, and I kept fighting through the end. If there was one thing that I could wish for, it would be that my children would learn to fight when the going gets tough. When it seems like there is not going to be a tomorrow, live for today. Watch the sunsets (maybe the sunrise too, but who gets up that early? Smell the flowers, eat new foods (Kelsey!)…..

Stacey taught me that happiness and joy can be found in life regardless of your circumstance. She made happiness a priority, a choice, a way of life. She fought for it.

And I am happy, and blessed, to have known her.