Trying this again....
Again the subject of me writing comes up. "You should write" my friends say... but write about what? The laundry I did last night? (Sheets & blankets) That I made dinner? (ground turkey, some pasta, big whoop) I think the trouble with "writing" is that it comes to me in spurts of inspiration, and when there is nothing in my head to write about, I struggle to come up with a topic that I feel is worthy. Perhaps you are saying, "Oh but Tammy your laundry stories are down right riveting." But I doubt this.
So today I'm going to just copy & paste what I wrote about the recent Relay for Life that we did in honor of Lori. For those of you catching up, you'll see her name a lot if you read the past postings. She fought hard, but her poor body couldn't do it. She passed away on 11/24/08 and I miss her every damn day.
So here's what I wrote, this was spurred on by a request from the local newspaper, who then ended up printing most of it in their story:
Hi John,
Cindy forwarded me your email along with the pictures you took of us at the Relay. The Gulls have sort of nominated me as spokesperson for our group. (Thank you for those pictures by the way, we may need to hire you to follow us around and be our official camera man haha)
I say "The Gulls" because that is our group:
In the picture of us you have from left to right:
Kathy Colclasure Tribble
Kim Ricketson Wright
Cindy Ratliff Williams
Tammy Lewis Fisher
Heather Clement Tessmer
The person missing from the picture, sadly, is Lori Roberts Baker. She is the impetus behind Team LORI. Lori passed away on November 24, 2008, after a 4+year battle with thyroid cancer. She left behind her husband Ricky, twin sons Zach & Theron (age 15), son Mason (age 6) and daughter Sidney (age 4). And she left behind the Gulls. You see, the 6 of us managed to maintain a decades long friendship - more of a sisterhood, really - some of as far back as 1st grade at Llano Elementary, and we graduated together from Llano High in 1985.
We really cemented the group and began to call ourselves "The Gulls" in high school. We would draw cartoon notes to each other and then exchange them in the hallways between classes. Instead of writing everyone's name at the top, we would draw 6 flying seagulls, because we decided "girls" sounded a lot like "gulls". The symbolism stuck and continues to this day.
Lori was such an important piece of the puzzle. She was a wild child and a rebel, easy going and loyal, gentle at heart yet ready to battle on behalf of her loved ones. Lori was a protector and a trusted confidante. She was laughter and fun times. And Lori was someone who helped strengthen our faith in God, as her time to pass grew near.
Lori never made a big deal of her thyroid cancer. In fact, she tried to keep us in the dark as much as possible. I think this was so we would not focus on her illness and, instead, just be The Gulls she knew and loved. I believe that as she struggled with the cancer and the treatments, The Gulls became a sort of oasis to her. We were a place where cancer did not exist. We laughed until we cried, we shared secrets, and with us for a short while, life could just be normal.
Watching someone you love so much go thru such suffering is very difficult and it can drive even the closest people apart. But not The Gulls. Near the end, when Lori was in the hospital, we came together almost every weekend to sit around her bed and be together. Lori wanted so much to leave the hospital and go to Kathy's backyard patio. She couldn't -- so we just brought the patio to her room. We'd sit around the bed and tell about the latest happenings in our lives, with our spouses and kids. Lori couldn't speak, and at times drifted in and out of consciousness, but we knew she could hear and was responding by her facial expressions. Lori could roll her eyes or make a face like nobody else!
During the times we could not be with her, Kathy was our advocate. Kathy became Lori's prayer partner, and went to her bedside morning and evening to pray with her and Ricky (Lori's husband). We are so grateful to Ricky & Lori's family for giving us so much access to Lori during these times.
So there is just a small taste of who Lori was to us. Her passing really made us Gulls stop and think: What did we learn from this? What lessons did Lori leave us with? One of the most important lessons is that we are responsible for taking charge of our own health. When the opportunity to do the Relay for Life came along, it was a no-brainer. We could honor Lori in a public way and get some exercise by walking.
We knew Lori had touched the Llano community in so many ways, but we never dreamed that Team LORI would grow so quickly. Within just the first few days, the original Team LORI was full (they allow 15 per team) so a Team #2 was started. In the end, we had nearly 30 people signed up to walk in Lori's name. Friends, family, co-workers from the Hoerster Clinic, church members from Pittsburgh Avenue..... we all came together to wear our hot pink tees with pride, in honor of a dear, lovely woman who was taken from us much too soon.
One thing that struck me, in particular, during the Relay was this: during one of the quiet, more emotional moments (I think someone was singing) I looked out across the field to see Mason & Sidney tearing across the grass, running as fast as their little legs could churn..... Sidney's curls flying wildly in the wind..... and then they FLUNG themselves onto the high jump pads at the edge of the track, amidst peals of laughter and giggles from all the children playing. And it dawned on me then: Life goes on. This is what Lori wanted more than anything: for her children to be happy and carefree after she was gone. And there they were, just kids being kids, the way it is meant to be. And although Lori is gone from all of us physically, she's never gone in spirit, because she lives on in those children, and everytime we see their faces we see a glimpse of Lori and her impish grin.
I realize this has been rather long. I apologize -- it is hard to summarize a person's life in just a couple of paragraphs, especially a person like Lori. There are hundreds of stories to tell about her, and just as many lessons to be learned from her. I think we'll be learning them into our old age.
posted by Tamfish @ 9:11 AM
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