Half Past 40

Earlier today, the news that Susan Niebur (a.k.a. @whymommy) had passed away was posted in a very touching tribute by her husband  Curt, on the blog that so many people came to know her through – Toddler Planet.  Susan finally lost her 5 year battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

Her beloved husband & 2 young sons, and so many family & friends lost too.  But we also won, in a manner of speaking, just by having known her.  As the rapidly growing number of comments on that post illustrate so well… Susan was the kind of person who left her mark on peoples’ hearts and minds.

You’d think after 5 years with a very open battle with this horrible disease and the blog posts of the past few months sharing her struggles with another course of chemo, withdrawal from pain killers, exhaustion, and pneumonia that the news of her death would’ve been less shocking than it actually was.  When I saw the link to Curt’s post come across my Facebook stream? It hit me like a physical blow. I started sobbing opening and tears streamed down my face.  I had to explain to my daughter that “one of my ‘mom friends’ had died.”

After telling my kidlet (who takes great pride in being a 2nd generation female geek) several tearful but good stories about my friend, Susan: the mom, blogger, astrophysicist and scientist?  She gave me a huge hug and wandered off to her room – then sent a text to me from her iPod that read:  “Always think the good things about her. It will help you to feel happier.”

Somewhere in the ensuing hours, when I was “thinking good things” about Susan (of which there were many) – I was trying to figure out exactly when I first ‘met’ her online.  I know it was some time in 2007 and I know it was through mutual Twitter pals (@SusanReynolds & @QueenofSpain I think.)  I know for a fact that she’s the reason I even knew there was a form of breast cancer that didn’t show up as a lump in your breast.  I think she was the reason tens of thousands of women know it.  Susan’s post about IBC and her incredibly open and candid blogging about her diagnosis was linked all over the place in late July of 2007, so I know that’s the latest it could’ve been because I remember reading it then.   I know that when I first “met” her in person, it was a year later at BlogHer 2008.

I’m sure she wouldn’t hold against me the fact that I was overwhelmed by the sudden experience of meeting hundreds of blogging & twitter friends in the flesh all at once and getting everyone confused with everyone else.  I don’t know exactly when I managed to actually place her in-person self with the same woman who wrote that first post and whose “Team WhyMommy” badges were in the sidebar of so many blogs I would stumble across – but I know that at some point it clicked and I felt absurdly foolish.  But not because she ever made me feel that way.  She was way too classy to ever make someone else feel that way.

Over the past 3 1/2 years, I’ve seen her and spent some time with her multiple times at different events.  Every time it was hard to remember that this vibrant, engaging, warm woman was the same woman who candidly wrote about having cancer and surviving the chemo and exhaustion and everything that went with it.

I know the last time I saw her was at Type-A Parent Conference in NC in June.  It seems like it was just a few weeks ago.  But I can still see the twinkle of laughter in her eyes.  Despite everything she was ever going through? What you’d remember if you’d ever met her was that she smiled.

She smiled, her eyes twinkled, and she was vibrant and alive.

I think that’s why Lord Byron’s line seems so fitting for this post about my friend Susan – the stargazer and beautiful soul.

“She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes…”

Goodnight, Susan.  You will continue to inspire me.