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| Monarch or "king" butterflies are known for their 3,000 + mile annual migrations; their lifespan is only 6-8 months. |
Writing the final post for this blog is kind of like writing my own obituary: it's morbid but there's also something cathartic about it.
I wanted to create a final post here for a few different reasons. One, I have had friends with CF who pass away and their blog just sits there like a sentence ending with ellipses. That is far too random for someone like me who always likes to be organized - especially with my writing.
Secondly, when people come here - and I do hope that my blog will still be used as a resource for people with CF - I want them to know what happened to me, to know when and why the writing stopped, to know that the author is someone who is no longer walking the planet. Again, a neat ending makes my brain happy.
So while this is an end for me, I hope that it will be a beginning for you - a beginning of staying connected to CF in new ways. Check out some of the amazing blogs on the CF Blogroll, or if that is too intense or depressing (I totally understand), raise money or donate to The Cystic Dreams Fund which helps CF patients with disease-related living and medical expenses.
Most importantly, register now to become an organ donor. Let your wishes be known to your family, put it in your will, make sure it's on your driver's license, find out what you have to do in your state to make sure you are registered, get the facts and share them with others.
Far too many people I have known and loved have lost their lives far too soon because of this disease. Many others have been able to prolong their time - all because a stranger, or a stranger's loved ones, made the decision to become an organ donor. Isn't it incredible that one organ donor can save up to eight lives?! Wouldn't it be amazing if every time you lost someone you loved there was someone else receiving a life-saving gift?
So do me a favor. When you tell the story of my passing to someone important to you, put in a plug for organ donation. (That plug will mean so much more if you are already signed up to be a donor!) Trust me that you will be making a life-changing impact for some of the more than 120,000 people currently waiting for a transplant.
Death is always sad, but I consider myself to have lived a very full life in my time on this planet. I have traveled to all kinds of amazing places, I have loved and been loved by some of the most wonderful people and animals, I have had the privilege of having a nice house, a nice car, nice things, a good education, I lived in an awesome community, had a job that I loved, had excellent health insurance and had some of the best medical professionals on the planet guiding me through both CF and transplant. There really isn't much more I could have asked for (well, maybe for a few more kitties...).
I guess the only other thing I really want to do is to say thank you. Thank you for being good friends and family members, and, most importantly, thank you Todd for being such a good husband. Thank you everyone for being there for me. Thank you for your positivity, your kindness, your understanding. Thank you for listening. Thank you for all of the good times and for sticking with me through the bad ones. Thank you each for being unique and amazing and making my life so fulfilling and interesting. Thank you for cooking me food, for giving me rides, for checking up on me, for sending cards, texts, emails and good wishes my way. Thank you for caring. There's not enough of that in the world.
Lastly - and I hope I'm not being presumptuous in saying this - thank you for becoming an organ donor. Please consider taking the extra step of making sure others around you are aware and educated about this option for themselves. And if you do indeed choose to make this decision, reply to the end of this thread so that the world can see the impact I have made. I would like nothing more than to leave a legacy of organ donors in my wake.
Lotsa love forever and ever,
L
(August 21, 2014)
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P.S. My sister’s spirit got released to the cosmic elements and trees on June 1, 2026. She wrote this last post almost 12 years ago and wanted people who come to this blog to know what happened to her. Well, damn. Despite what it says on her death certificate (kidney failure), in fact she got a number of lung infections that she could not fight off with her lungs in rejection as they were. (Her Durham-area CF friends can add details to this if they wish.) She was clear eyed about what was happening to her and actually had a near death experience several nights before, waking with the awareness that ‘it was time,’ that she was ready and wholly unafraid. She decided to forego active treatment in favor of palliative care. She was transported the next day to a hospice facility, and she died one day later, with a Red House Painters album playing in the background. Her friends and I wondered whether Laura, who willed herself so much life beyond all expectations, had in the end willed herself to die. She was buried four days later in a gorgeous wooded spot (with butterflies) in Bluestem Conservation Cemetery surrounded by friends and loved ones, who shared stories of her life and raised small glasses of Blue Moon in her honor. May she rest in peace at long last, and in the power of her life’s memory for all who knew (and knew of) her.
— her loving brother, Nate (Nathan) Smith
