This blog post is dedicated to a friend I never met. It is about the power of social media to help us find kindred spirits, living each day fully and with love and speaking and acting with principle and conviction.
I first met Teva Harrison through hearing her interviewed by Shelagh Rogers on The Next Chapter. I was so moved by listening to her speak about living life fully despite a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer at age 37, that I went out that day and bought her book The In Between Days, a memoir about living with cancer. And of course I reached out to her on social media.
To my delight, she responded and our limited friendship began. In 2017 she agreed to do an advance review of my second book. I followed her progress as a speaker and a writer and we had the occasional direct message. Her messages always ended with some kind of love note, some message of kindness and encouragement.
Besides her incredible joy for life and living each day fully, Teva was also an outspoken advocate for better resources and research for people living with metastatic breast cancer. Despite being in treatment for most of the 5 years following her diagnosis, she kept up a relentless pace of writing and speaking.
Recently when Teva got a bit quiet on social media I checked in with her and learned she was in hospital. Then her husband posted they had her home and it was hard days. I knew then she was preparing to leave this world. On Sunday morning I saw a post from Shelagh Rogers on Twitter saying she had just learned of Teva’s passing. In her Tweet Shelagh said “Let us all honour her beautiful spirit by practicing what she lived: #suchlove, always #suchlove.”
Rest easy now friend and know you will be missed by me and a whole lot of other friends you never met.
