In the discussion of people living with illness, it has become cliché to talk about how they carried on, unwavering, in the face of their disease; but in talking about Laur I would be doing her a disservice not to mention how she retained a rare and outstanding bravery throughout the time that I knew her. The way in which she handled her illness was a testament not just to her remarkable resilience, but also to her empathy for others in that she never wanted to play the martyr or belittle anyone else’s problems in light of her own. She constantly surpassed our conceptions of her limitations with few people even realizing that she was sick, largely, I believe, because she never saw herself as limited. I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw her complain about her disease.
One of these times, which I hope Laur wouldn’t mind me sharing, I remember vividly. It was after walking home to our residence back from Koerner’s. The four residents of the Thunderdome (our nickname for our dorm), Laur, Alanna, Kayla and myself, met in Cariboo first year, and lived together through first and second year. We are tight-knit beyond description, and this night out was just a repeat of countless nights spent together. We all went into our separate rooms when we got back, but when I headed to shower I heard muffled crying noises coming from Laur’s room. I hesitated at the door, not sure whether the kinder thing was to go in and comfort her or let her be alone to release her frustration.
After a good minute or two of internal debate, I finally slipped inside and went to go sit with her on her bed. She had been slower walking back from the bar than us, as the disease had recently begun to affect her mobility, leaving her with drop-foot and a noticeable limp that made keeping up with us difficult. We continually let her know that she was in no way inconveniencing us when we matched our pace to her's, but to Laur, highly competitive and a former athlete used to dominating the volleyball court and conquering mountaintops, her impediment was unconscionably frustrating. She cried, and as she cried she looked at me and told me she was tired, tired of being sick, tired of hospitals and endless talk of cancer, and this is when I learned what heartbreak really feels like.
Now, Alanna and Kayla came to sit on Laur’s bed too and we studiously avoided the topic of her disease and the tear tracks on her cheeks, filling the air with chatter to restore normalcy because that’s what family, even a created one, does: give you a life raft of the mundane to cling to when everything else is shot to hell. We tried to help give Laur as normal of a college experience as we could, and in return she gave us her friendship and trust. I’d say we got the better end of the bargain.
So yes, Laur was brave and kind and all of those wonderful things you’re supposed to say about people who have died, but she was a real person too. I can’t help but run over and over all of the little things I know about her, hoarding these little things because they’re what I have to connect me to her. These at one time insignificant details that, when pieced together make up my memory of Laur, are what linger. They’re what I’ll remember instead of any narrative centred on illness. One thing I never want to do is make Laur more of an inspiration than a person. I am trying to remember Laur as a real girl, my friend, and not a paragon of virtue.
So some things I loved about Lauren, in no particular order: Laur was an awful singer, like actually tone deaf and yet, I’ll always remember her belting out Bohemian Rhapsody with me in first year and insisting I keep the radio on until it was over on our way back from the first of many midnight Denny’s runs -- on which, she would invariably eat twice as much as me even though I had a good foot on her. She was the only one in our house who could open tight jars and deal with bugs, which she joked made her the dad of the house. She could pull absolutely disgusting faces when she wanted to, which she did often, and in highly inappropriate circumstances. She could drop in marine life facts into virtually any conversation. She was beautiful but she didn’t care. She had a weird fixation with climbing trees.
Laur was not her illness, but a girl bursting with life and vitality, this kind of extraordinary radiance I have yet to see matched. We lived with her and yet, in all honesty, it was easy to forget she was sick because no one who ever met Laur could ever associate her with anything other than boundless optimism and compassion, and could never describe her as anything other than brilliantly alive.
It’s not fair, of course, that she got 20 years when she should have had far more, but death, and I guess by extension life too, is not in the business of playing fair. I have to remind myself of this when I am tempted to dwell on the outrageous injustice dealt to Laur’s friends and family because she is no longer around. I am so, so grateful for the time with her that I got, but I can’t help but wish all of our plans about what to do when we are real grown-ups, all four of us together, were still possible- because they’re not, or at least not possible in the way we imagined them. In our house we are missing a piece that is precious and irreplaceable.
Laur had this incredibly annoying habit of calling me by boys’ names. Her favourites: “Larry,” which makes me sound like and obese plumber, and sometimes “Lars,” which sounds like some B-grade action movie hitman. It used to drive me insane. Now I think I would give anything to hear her call me that again. I miss her almost as much as I love her.
In honour of Lauren's memory, her family and friends are establishing a scholastic award for a UBC Commerce student in her name.
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