How is it possible that I admire you so, when I don’t know you?
This is a question I have frequently asked myself ever since I happened to attend a gathering in your honor with people who knew you. Not only friends and family, but others like me, people who never met you, but who you succeeded in reaching and touching with your story. People who believed and wanted to contributed and share your vision, a vision that now takes shape.
You were surrounded by people I did not know, but I immediately felt comfortable. Maybe because I felt that through the blog posts you published in Scars & Scarves, a blog I read unfailingly and with great interest, I had the impression that I also knew you. You described your own reality unaltered, your feelings and experiences without hesitation. Your writing had something that touched me from the first moment. It was real, authentic and transparent. It is admirable to be able to communicate such a positive aura even though the narration of such challenging physical and psychological experiences.
There was always something positive in the way you phrased your thoughts. No matter the situation you were in, you saw life with yearning wanting to live every moment to the fullest. This was the feeling you conveyed to me, a person who never met you. You made me understand that you had discovered the secret of life that hides in every moment we live, in small and simple, everyday things.
I never met you, but I feel that I know you.
And yet, can a picture with your luminous and sincere smile convey the energy, kindness, strength and optimism you inspire? Is it possible to touch someone who never met you? It touched me. I admire you for your love of life.
Discovering the deeper meaning of life, you wanted to share it with those around you. Something that is both admirable and courageous to do. You had a dream to build a nonprofit organization with a goal to give patients the ability to engage in creative activities and to find psychological support. Especially during those tough hours when they cannot escape from the limited, austere and unwelcoming space of the hospital where they have been called, unwillingly and unnaturally, to spend endless hours. You had a dream to give them a choice to do something for themselves, and to remind them that they need to live every day.
“In life, it is important to do something that others’ remember,” you had said. You succeeded to be remembered not only by those who knew you personally, but all those who you touched with the affirmative stance of your life. You succeed in inspiring and empowering other people to embrace the same stance in their own lives forging a chain where you are the first ring.
You must have really been amazing, or rather, you were certainly amazing, since you have inspired and will continue to inspire others. I will end this entry with your message: “Cancer must stop being a taboo and must be dealt with as a chronic disease, just that, … SIMPLY.”
Emma, I never met you but I feel that I know you.
With admiration
Ε.Ε.
*Emma’s vision is realized by her family, her friends and all those who are inspired by her voice and her stance towards life through the establishment of PAMEMMAZI, a Non-Profit Organization that offers creative and meaningful activities to patients and caregivers in hospitals. Learn more about PAMEMMAZI and explore ways you can support its cause by following this link: www.pamemmazi.org/en
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