Blake+S’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Seeing Death as Life= by Blake S. = = A physician looks at you and says, "We can't guarantee that you will live beyond the next two months. I'm so sorry." What would your reaction be if the doctor who used to simply diagnose you with a flu or cold slowly transformed into a clock, walking beside you, ticking inexorably toward the end of your rope? Would you be afraid? I would be. Most of the people I know would be. My best friend's mom was.

Karen Humbles was the strongest woman I have ever met, and she was also like a second mom to me, as well as my biggest fan. Her daughter, Krista, has been my best friend for as long as I can remember; we have countless pictures with each other in photo albums from our times as teens, pre-teens, kids, toddlers and babies. And just as long as she has been my best friend, her mom had been there. There is no appropriate word to describe who she was to me besides 'family'. She was not related to me by blood, but she being best friends with my mom became an important motherly figure in my life, bringing forward the second mom comparison. In the America I grow up in, family will reach far beyond bloodline.

In kindergarten, I was home-schooled, and half the school week I spent at their house. We would picnic while doing school work; Karen would bring us juice, watermelon, and crackers with cheese; we loved cheese. I was 5, Krista was 5, and sickness was a far-off stranger. But Karen was sick, even if I couldn't understand it. The times she would fall were always confusing to me, because she wouldn't get up like everyone else. The wigs she would wear because of her hair loss during chemo were objects of silliness to me; she made them funny. It was never a drag to be around Mama K, because she was such a bright light of joy. She took her sickness and adorned it beautifully, keeping all those around her in a state of peace about it. Like it never fails to do, time passed by; we got older, their family adopted a girl from Russia, Julia, who is now one of my best friends, the eldest sister Laina graduated from high school...but Karen was still sick. I soon became informed of her disease; its name was cancer. The far-off stranger from before now became a close-up enemy. Cancer was not nice. Cancer was relentless, it was greedy, it was cruel. But Karen was strong; she beat limits on time she had left, and her steadfast faith in Jesus became a huge part of why I trust in God so confidently. By 2011, the cancer had gone away, come back, gone away, and come back again multiple times, and it was a part of all our lives. The prayers we would pray, the medicines she took, the therapies she underwent were all because we had faith in something bigger than ourselves. In the America I grow up in, I hope to see people who aren't afraid to believe in something more than what looks back at them in the mirror. We believed that God would free her from her pain if it was His will.

But the cancer spread. And in 2012, my heart was heavy for the amazing woman who so encouraged me to be all that I can be; although my faith that she would find rest did not waver, worry began to plant its seeds in my mind. She made the decision to stop treatment that year. But what came next was the rest I had been praying and hoping for, only not in the way I expected. I will always remember the last few weeks of Karen's life. She became tired, she ate less, she was in pain; cancer seemed to be winning. But still, I believed that she would be healed, that by some miracle, cancer would be stopped once and for all. I would repeat to myself that she could not and would not die, that our lives would be too unbalanced if her joyful face left us. In the America I grow up in, I want to see a cure for cancer.

Karen passed away on Christmas morning in 2012. Words and tears were not sufficient, and for a short while I felt angry with God; why did he have to take her? Her husband needs her, her daughters are so young, and she had so much more to still see. Krista graduated from high school this last weekend, and my heart broke for the experience her mom was missing. It was not through anything but God that I realized my prayers had been answered; it was Him who saved me from mourning. I will never stop missing Karen, but I now look forward to each passing day, knowing that some day I will see her again in Heaven. We cried during the graduation, missing her, but carrying hearts that ached with joyful longing to see her again soon. I no longer fear death, because it is just part of the process, a process leading us back to true happiness. I hope to see a country full of people who hold on tightly to memories that make people like Karen live on; people who realize that those whose suffering has ended have been dealt the better cards.

In the America I grow up in, I don't only want to see a cure for cancer; I want to see a world where death is seen as simply a temporary goodbye. In this America, other people, like myself, will come to realize that death is just a ticket to paradise, and it's not the afflicted, but it's us who are the unlucky ones.