Lenore Rogers Remembers Amy

It was a pleasure…

…to have known Amy for more than twenty years, meeting her first when she and a two-year-old Rachel moved next door to me into a duplex I owned in Newburyport, MA. If I were asked to choose what it was that first made Amy stand out for me, it wouldn’t have been the facts that she was beautiful, or that she possessed an amusing and interesting take on life, kind of a well-thought out and eclectic curiosity about why we are all here. Or that she could and would challenge you to think – to step outside the box, so to speak. While all of those things were true, it would have been her laugh that first stood out for me. It had the power to lift you, carry you from any dark or dreary place… and it was infectious.

As my kitchen window overlooked the backyard weshared, it was the sound I most often heard coming from there. So it was first her laugh, unencumbered even through the most difficult times. And then it was that she was “crazy” about the kid—“mad about the guppie”—. She delighted in being a Mom to the little bag of bones who pronounced her s's as f's. When Rachel felt like summoning my big old Maine Coon Cat named Spencer, she'd call out at the top of her lungs “FENCER.” (During that same time, there was a line from the Grateful Dead classic, Man Smart, Women Smarter, that Rachel loved to sing—also at the top of her lungslungs—“that's right, the women are smarter, the women are smarter, that's right” You can well imagine how that came out.)

Lenore and Amy at the beach

As I was privileged to watch them at play, it was evident then and throughout their 22 years together that they shared a bond that was as deep as any, a language all of their own. They adored each other fully and held each other in a kind of reverence that was unshakeable.

Amy's disease and prognosis was stunning for us all. This should not happen to a fit, exceedingly kind, well loved and respected individual who simply by her very nature made so many lives better. Should not happen to someone who was quietly living a life that was remarkable in only how very ordinary it was—family, friends, work and play. But it does happen – everyday – to not only Amy but to hundreds like her. All, or at least most, are well loved. All are making an impact in the lives they've constructed, many are a key cog in the workings of a family and in the gyrations of a friendship. And then they find their calm shattered by the Molotov Cocktail of cancer, by the lone gunman in the water tower, the random, seemingly senseless onslaught of cancer.

Lenore and Amy dining with friends

I recognized what true courage was and was awed by—that in spite of pain and fear—Amy's humor remained; that in the middle of a life interrupted, she continued to possess a deep concern for others. “Everyone with cancer should have a day like this” she had said—at a time in a life when being selfish, when being self-involved would be both understood and excused. To want good for others, to want for this community of cancer sufferers to be “treated” to a burden lifted, to be given the possibility of a magical day was all in that simple statement. It was all very humbling for me, and yet nothing surprised me about how Amy faced her disease and her death. She was tough and gave it her all, not letting it define her, very rarely feeling sorry for herself, and never once losing sight of all she was grateful for. Her humility and poise is a model that, when faced with my own mortality, I would hope to emulate.

And so with her passing, Rachel and I, Kelly and Linda, Barbara and Robin, Cecile, Lydia and Janice and all of those wonderful family members, friends and co-workers around us contributed opinions, thoughts and ideas so that we could create a foundation that was most like the individual we hoped to honor. I think that we've succeeded in that. Amy's Treat is kind and strives to—a least for a short while—lift someone from a dark and dreary place.

—Lenore Rogers, Amy's Treat President