Rachel's POV

From the mouth of my babe, Rachel. Hope you have tissues.

Movies about cancer don’t really prepare you for the real life alternative. When the world’s sweetest human being on earth gets diagnosed with colon cancer, your best friend, it feels like suddenly you’ve become some kind of head-scratching cave person. What are you supposed to do? What do you say? The overwhelming need to fix the situation paralyzes your better judgment. How make better!? Your inner cave person will shout to the heavens. But, unless you’re a genius doctor or an extraordinary therapist… well, it feels like you might as well be a hat rack. Maybe you could hold your friends things while she goes to her appointments? At least that’s something. 


As it turns out though, the most important thing I could contribute was just being there, being present in every sense of the word. Just being someone my friend could talk to about how she was feeling. If she needed a ride to an appointment, of course I was going to offer. If she needed someone to spend the night in the hospital, absolutely, I’d be there with a pillow and some DVDs in an hour. I let Erin tell me what she needed, not the other way around. She had doctors, she had therapist. It felt good just to be there and to be able to help in any sort of capacity. 


We’d end up giggling in the hospital room, laughing about one day writing a comic about ‘Cancer Girl’ or a novel called ‘Dark Shit. A memoir about butt cancer.’ We’d tear up together when there was bad news and sigh with happy relief when there was good. In the end, I’d really only been what a best friend is anyway; that person who sits by you thick and thin, who is happy to roll your IV stand to the bathroom with you, who tries to help you smile when it seems the whole world is determined to see you crushed. Even if I did feel like a head-scratching cave person I could still be a friend and will be forever.