A Tribute To Shannon...

Welcome to a very special entry. When another warrior and friend had lost her battle to Melanoma I was devastated beyond words. We had been friends for several years and she had reached out to me for support and I found it much too hard to call her back. I had just had the tip of my tongue removed and I was just so overcome with depression with the loss of many others on our support board and with my dear friend Shannon getting more sick that I was afraid that I would not be able to find the words to help her. So instead I just did nothing.... I emailed her and she understodd but I still felt guilty. She was such a great person!!! Then I got the call on Sunday morning from my best friend Jenn....the call that never
wanted to get...."Chris...are you awake??it's me Jenn...Shannon has passed away..." I sat up took a deep breathe and told her I would have to call her back and just sat in my bed and sobbed hard..really hard!!! I don't even remember if I called her back that day or not. I was so mad at myself!! How could I let my friend down like that??? I hit a wall so hard I crahsed and it hurt!!! I shut eveyone out and I was beating on myself and I wasn't letting up. Then one day at 4:30 I decided to get in my car and go down to my church to talk to my pastor. I didn't have an appointment but he had a few minutes to spare. He asked me if I thought that Shannon was mad with me. That made me think... He asked if I was mad at myself for not calleing her back that day or if I was mad that she had died from this disease and not me?? Was I upset with being a survivor??? He felt that maybe just maybe my real issue was with the fact that I was carry alot of guilt around because I have Stage IV Melanoma and have survived for longer than what was expected but yet many others around me are not. He said that I try to support others but them I fall short at the end and then I beat myself up for that and then what good is what I do if I do that??? He was right. If I want to do good and help other Melanoma patients and their famalies then I have to do it right!!! So I went home and got onto 2peas.com one of my scrapbooking message boards and made a plea for some help with making an memorial album for Ed and Allanah and Ryan, Shannon's kids. I posted my story and Shannon's story and a link to her blog so they could read her story and get a sense of what Shannon was all about. Before I knew it I had a ton of women responding and saying that they would help me out and make layouts. So the end reslut are these amamzing layouts that are now on their way to Ed. They filled up 4 albums!!! Layouts were sent to me from all over..Canda,California,Australia just to anme a few places. Some women took pictures right from Shannon's blog to use on the layouts. The thought and intense emotion that has gone into these is just amazing!!!! I could not have pulled this off with out the help of all of these very talented women!!!! Thank you!!!!