30 years ago, those two precocious teens thought their high school wasn’t doing enough to take care of the environment. They wanted recycling bins available, local hiking trails preserved and their fellow students to care more about the earth. So they convinced their principal to let them start a new club called SOS: Save Our Surroundings, and did lots of cool things to educate and create change. The club actually lasted at the high school long after their days there, more than 20 years!
Now, SOS is being reimagined & reborn.
There are much smarter folks than Kelly & me handling environmental education these days — but in the last couple of years, we inadvertently became well-versed in another cause close to our hearts: advanced and aggressive breast cancer.
As I explained in yesterday’s blog post, we were both diagnosed in 2018 — and Kelly’s metastatic cancer took her from us earlier this year. Lately I’ve been thinking about an idea she brought to me last fall. She wanted to find a way, maybe via a blog, to share some of the things we’d been discussing throughout our journeys. Her working title was “Library of Stardust,” and we planned to figure out logistics, but then life — and death — happened. And the idea faded away.
But in recent days, it’s like Kelly keeps setting it back in front of me. Little signs, little nudges. I looked up her name idea, and it was taken. I started brainstorming other possibilities — and realized maybe we could create a new kind of SOS. Like, maybe… “Speaking of Stardust?”
Right at that moment, a bunny came bounding in front of me, across our yard. Kelly was crazy for bunnies, guys. It was a perfect high five from her — and that’s when I knew we were really going to do this.
So today I invite you into our new mission, with me working over here and Kelly working over there, wherever she is. We’re putting out a new kind of SOS — to inspire greater awareness & more research for #MBC and #TNBC, to help readers grow more comfortable facing death and dying, and what we’d learned that might help others.
The majority of content, with reflections from me and Kelly (including writings she left behind and whispers from her now) will be shared on the brand new @speakingofstardust Instagram account. Follow us there! You’ll also find longer blog post content in a special new SOS section of my site (just go to speakingofstardust.com). I am curious and excited to see how this unfolds, and to still be working with my beloved friend, just in a new and different way. To infinity & beyond!
