FTX #68 – Cristina

Two Lovely Ladies Wearing Their Breast Cancer Bracelets....
Two Lovely Ladies Wearing Their Breast Cancer Bracelets....

FTX #68 – Cristina

hey ftx gang and friends, i just wanted to write a quick note about my friend Cristina.

i met her in early 2007 on a job. i can actually remember the first time i saw her. i can’t tell you why that is but i do. i guess it’s safe to say she made an impression on me.

time is a funny thing. for some reason i don’t remember working with her. i only remember the moments we shared while others were working around us. i remember being in a dirty downtown los angeles underground parking garage on a particularly exhausting day. i could tell she was feeling a bit down and i asked her if she had five uninterrupted minutes to give to me. without hesitating she said yes. i then put my headphones on her and played hammock’s “i can almost see you”. i knew that was the song that would take her out of her surroundings and release her.

she often did the same for me. we had lengthy conversations about love and the importance of truly enjoying every moment of your life. Cristina never hesitated to emphasize the importance of laughing.

2007 was a transition year for me. it was then that after 36 years i finally understood that i deserved to be loved. that we all do. and in less than a week later that belief came to fruition.

2007 was a transition year for Cristina. it was the year she found out she had breast cancer. but she fought it thru many surgeries alongside Bruce her husband and i’m sure many close friends and family members. she fought it and won! Bruce, i believe, married Cristina after they found out about her cancer. an act that i will always remember as a guideline for my life of what a man really is.

in the end i believe our actions are who we are. what we physically do with our time is all that we leave behind. Cristina in the midst of her chemotherapy came out to FTX Echo Park in the winter of 2007. it was literally the week i finally understood love. and her act was nothing but that.

Cristina & Bruce At FTX Echo Park - 2007

when we did FTX Downtown Los Angeles this year it was Cristina who wrote on our blog about how moved she was by all of us. about how our actions as a group proved to her the existence of unconditional love. fifteen days after her post she emailed a group of her friends about the return of her cancer. that was february 17th of this year.

it was always my intention to come back to los angeles in september after finishing my current job and see her. she has been constantly in my thoughts. i felt a tenuous connection with my heart and hers that ran across our america. i was fighting to get back to see her.

our one rule as a gang, to be only who you are and who are only adds to the planet, well that rule is Cristina. as it is with all of you. i, who like to do things in my own time, was going to surprise Cristina with her FTX shirt this september. i wrote Bruce two days ago and asked if any number was special to her. he asked for 608 or 68 which was the month and day of their wedding.

but time ran out. she passed away last night at 5:23pm pst with her loved ones near.
her gang shirt as promised will be delivered. #68.

Cristina asked me for two things.

when she found out about her cancer in 2007 she asked her friends to click on the the breast cancer site. each click goes towards giving a woman a free mammogram. i’ve done it every day since she’s asked and maybe you would like to too.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

while i was working last year in new zealand in an amazingly beautiful home on the water with my wonderful girl Brandy she wrote me, knowing how hard it was for me to finally get to a place where i could be loved, and asked me to yell out at the top of my lungs “I am alive, I love life!”. i didn’t do it then.

i did it today.

welcome to our gang Cristina & Bruce. welcome to our family.

with love,

shyam
ftx 1

to read Cristina’s post on our 2009 ftx downtown los angeles blog go here and scroll down:

http://frenchtoastandhugs.com/?p=104

Cristina & Me - 2007

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