Summer 1999 - Embracing cancer

cancer

Following Auma's surgery she shares, "As I rested, the girls gave me something to look forward to. We began to plan the big "Party of the Century" that had been promised months before. Like many of the S.O.S. ideas, a brainstorm had been born out of a single conversation and then grew to momentous proportion. We decided early on that, since none of us had had the opportunity to really dress up in decades, it would be awesome to dress in gowns and have all our husbands wear tuxedos. For many of us, the only times in our lives that we had ever gotten to go all out fashion-wise was at our weddings, and perhaps for some, way back at our proms."

Party of the Century - Y2K - New Years Eve 1999

Party

"As the new millennium began, life proceeded for my friends and me. With my cancer behind me, I did all that I could to enjoy a new lease on life. Cancer had been a gift that finally brought me closer to inner peace. I was thirty-seven and I finally realized that people will like you for who you are and, if they don’t, then to hell with them. Being true to yourself is such a liberating feeling. With a new understanding of the fragility of life, I felt there was no time to spare and it seemed important to make the most of every moment. With our big New Year's party behind us and Charlene’s fortieth coming up, it made perfect sense to use her birthday as an excuse for an impromptu road trip. Charlene and Kitt had been the best of friends when Kitt had lived in town. Now that she lived in Michigan, we decided that some of us would pile into Maggie’s van and drive there one weekend for a visit. Now, I know that you are thinking driving to Michigan and back in a weekend is a bit of a stretch, but our motto was that getting there was half the fun. . ."