Celebrating Amy

Long before Amy’s illness we both openly recognized how blessed were are for the deep fortunes of friendship and family. We celebrated these friendships with parties, trips, visits, hikes or sometimes just a phone call or text to distant friends. Through this tragedy I know those relationships will grow stronger. The Foster boys (all 4 of us) will be relying on you for all the continued love, affection, and sometimes quiet space as we learn to navigate the unthinkable. We lived the last several months as if she were the exception to her diagnosis. It is how Amy chose to live…to that end her passing was sudden and shocking to our family.

Our family will get through these next weeks, months and years anyway possible as we have learned to be strong from the best. We have chosen to do an intimate family only service this Friday with a burial close to our home in Hamilton. These are tough decisions to make, yet simple when considering the state and capacity of the boys and our extended family. I would ask you to celebrate your life, and that of Amy’s this Friday or weekend by going for a beach run, climb a mountain, eat exotic foods, happily watch your kids play sports, call your parents or siblings niece or nephew and tell them you love them, play an intense competitive round of golf or listen to public radio. Amy loved each of these activities and it would make her happy to hear we honored her in this way.

In the upcoming weeks we will hold a Celebration of Amy that I am expecting will be a more inclusive event allowing all that loved Amy to hopefully attend,  give us all bit of time to reflect and give her the beautiful tribute she deserves. The raw emotions of this week for all of us, would diminish a beautiful life we want to celebrate with laughter, stories and heart felt moments.

We would ask that, in lieu of flowers, we celebrate her life through gifts to further cancer research.  Gifts may be made to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in memory of Amy DiAdamo Foster via http://www.jimmyfund.org/gift or at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, P.O. Box 849168, Boston, MA 02284.

The picture below is the one of Amy that keeps coming into my mind – metastatic cancer, on chemo, car sick from the snow cat, skiing snows and steeps she’s never tried before, but her smile and indomitable spirit light up the world.

Franklin