This is my friend, Kristin. I have known her forever. She is one of those people who has always been present in mylife, regardless of time, or distance.

I always think of her laughter. She has always been funny. Telling a joke, playing a prank, cheering someone else on, silently supporting a friend while sitting in an audience.. that’s her. She’s that friend.

Even after we graduated, moved on to college and began our “adult” lives, she was always present. I would be working at Live 105 radio and she’d show up with Steve Masters’ “special guest”. I’d volunteer at a Comic Convention, she’d be sitting on the panel with the Darick Robertson laughingly chiding me for referring to Space Beaver as “cute”. At 2am I’d be shepherding friends, from a Fishbone concert to McD’s, and there she would be, deep in conversation with Angelo Moore.

She is one of the most ALIVE people I have ever known.

There is no such thing as “The GOOD cancer”.

Cancer is all bad.

Cancer isn’t simple, it’s vague, and scary. Somehow, in my friend’s body, it decided to grow. It grew, it reached out to healthy areas, and it claimed them too. It grew, and it started hurting my friend. It began causing her physical pain. It ate her sense of well-being. It’s stealing her joy.

I can’t fight cancer for her. None of us can.

But we can provide.

We can offer her some stability, and relief. So she can fight and heal.

We can give her more than encouragement. We can help with the bills, the rent, the copayments. We can keep her cats with her, to do that magic only a pet can provide.

Please. Help me give my friend hope, and show her that she has a village.

it’s going to take one.