I attended the funeral of one of my patients this morning, one of my all-time heroes, one of the most inspiring people I've ever met.  Dead at only 33.  I was honored that the family asked me to be one of the speakers at her funeral and I am sharing my remarks about her because more of the world should know about this special human being, and about the unbounded capacity of  the human spirit.  And because I'm in the mood to sing her praises; the opportunity may not come again.  To wit:

One of my heroes has fallen.

 

I didn’t have the good fortune to meet Emily until early 2002 but I knew a fair bit about her by that time.  My wife, Carol, first met and got to know Emily when she was working with the Lupus Foundation’s Arizona chapter, while Emily was still in high school.  Carol regrets that she is unable to be here this morning due to a previously scheduled trip to Indiana, but she asked me to extend to Linda, Caroline and all of Emily’s family and friends her sympathies and heart-felt condolences.

 

My first recollection relating to Emily was of Carol telling me about a young woman she’d met through her volunteer work who had been stricken with the most virulent form of systemic lupus at age eleven.  She was deeply touched at the time by the cheerfulness and optimism of this sweet girl in the face of what Carol well understood was a devastating illness, likely to be fatal sooner than later.

 

Carol shared with me her doubts that Emily would achieve the goal she had set for herself, to graduate from high school, a concern shared by her physicians at the time because of the highly aggressive nature of the vasculitis which had robbed her of an eye and most of a finger at age 15.  But Emily not only persevered and walked at her high school graduation, she went on to earn both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education.  By the time I met Emily in early 2002, when she began seeing me as a patient, she was 26 and, against all the odds, working full-time as a teacher of children with special needs.

 

Over the last two thirds of her life, Emily faced countless medical challenges and met them all with courage and equanimity, always maintaining her sense of humor and balance, inspiring all of us in the process.  Throughout the too brief time I knew her, despite the unrelenting, debilitating effects of her illness and the treatments needed to manage them, she never lost her spirit and wanted nothing more than to get back to her classroom. 

 

She had a love for children which was manifest in her choice of career, which must have been somewhat bittersweet for Emily, knowing that she would never have any of her own.  But if she ever felt any sense of loss from her illness, she never expressed it.  On the contrary, she held a perpetually glass half full perspective.  I never ceased to marvel at her grit and determination, even though she seemed to take it for granted.  In the dictionary of life, her image appears beside three words – humility,  hero and angel.  Whenever Emily’s name was mentioned by my staff or other mutual acquaintances, I routinely volunteered my admiration for her and the fact that I considered her one of my true heroes.  While her mortal life among us has ended, all too suddenly, she will live on in the hearts of all those who were fortunate enough to know her.  I will remember her always as I saw her less than a week before her death, optimistic about the future and shouldering her burdens with a composed resolve.  I can only take comfort in the knowledge that her physical suffering has ended, while her spirit and soul live on.

 

I’d like to thank Linda and Caroline for the opportunity to honor Emily here today.  God bless you all.

I wish all of you could have known and learned from her, too.

That's it.