“Is that your STEP?” was the first thing she said to me during a class at Westmount Y, and so unfolded a friendship woven with both luminous and dark threads.
In honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I’m sharing Kella’s story as a vivid tapestry of human resilience, a rallying cry beyond pink ribbons. I will call her Kella to honour her privacy, but a changed name can’t dilute the magnitude of her life story.
Over casual walks and more cups of coffee than I can count, I learned Kella was living with a man a decade her junior. A seemingly benign detail until I discovered she was also battling breast cancer. She opted out of a recommended mastectomy, not by choice, but because her boyfriend forbade it. I realized Kella was fighting two cancers: one in her cells and another in her home.
When I advised Kella to seek professional help for her abusive relationship, she did, but to no avail. The system failed her as surely as her body was failing her. Her twin battles against cancer and domestic violence marched on, intertwined and relentless. Faced with an inescapable mastectomy, her boyfriend committed another act of violence. He unleashed another round of abuse on her the night before her life-saving operation.
Concurrently, I was embroiled in my own challenges—launching a women’s wellness clinic. Born from a vision of empowerment, the clinic became an ironic crucible of misogyny, fueled by both my financial partner and my so-called healer of a doctor.
We devised a plan: Upon completing her final chemo session, Kella would sever ties with her boyfriend and move in with me and Peter, turning a new page toward happiness and healing. This hopeful blueprint crumbled with a gut-wrenching call from the police. They had found Kella bruised and battered on a city sidewalk and immediately escorted her to a shelter for her safety. Despite this jarring setback, she refused to be deterred. We found her an apartment and brought her into the fold at my clinic, inching closer to a sense of normality.
It was then that Kella, freshly liberated from an abusive marriage and chemo’s grip, stepped in to be my rock.
Her indefatigable spirit became the lifeline that anchored me through my own quagmire of struggles. A semblance of normalcy seemed within our grasp, a testament to how far determination can carry us, even when the world insists on knocking us down.
Things were going well; months rolled by with Kella working steadily, rekindling friendships, and genuinely enjoying life. Then, as if fate had a dark sense of humor, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia.
Six months later, she was gone.
Kella was a warrior. She had the kind of grit that turns suffering into strength, not just for herself but for others. Amid her storms, she became my anchor, demonstrating a selflessness that defied logic. Her beauty was in her indomitable spirit, her capacity to love even when she was starved of it. Kella left an indelible imprint on the souls she touched, proving that heroes don’t always wear capes—sometimes, they bear scars. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I celebrate Kella, a radiant beacon of strength and unconditional love. She didn’t just fight her battles; she made us all a little stronger for them. And for that, her memory deserves nothing less than to be celebrated and forever etched into the chronicles of the warriors who make this world a better place.
I miss her.
