One tin soldier rides away...

On August 5th Michelle "Max" Buckius lost her brief and fierce battle with cancer. In the hours, days, and weeks since then I have been constantly thinking about the beautiful soul that was Michelle and how despite her life being cut short she had such an impact on not just myself and my sister but countless other people.

I did not have the privilege of meeting Michelle until we were thirteen, almost fourteen, and one week away from the start of High School at Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead, NY. We were at Island Trees Middle School picking up our text books. Our Mothers began bonding over how they paid so much in taxes and all the district had to do was provide a bus and books and they didn't even want to do that. See the problem the school district was having was that we were taking Latin and the school had ordered the books and now couldn't locate them. So while we all waited for further information on the books Michelle, Meghan, and I exchanged some small talk about hobbies and interests. Eventually there was a resolution to the missing books and we all went our way. I didn't think much about our meeting. I assumed we may not even really see each other much in high school since I was coming from a school where there had been 25 in my class and in Sacred Heart there would be 200. Sure I knew we were taking Latin but at this point three out of three people that I knew at Sacred Heart were taking Latin so that didn't mean much.

Our Mothers and us at graduation.

Michelle and I join Meg and try on tree costumes.

Then the first day of school came, and the bus came, and we got on, and Michelle was there and immediately picked up on the conversation from a week earlier. And then there she was again in Latin class (because only a few brave souls actually took Latin) and of course the bus ride home. And this went on day after day after day, year after year. Sometimes it changed sometimes Michelle or we would have an after school activity and someone would skip the bus. Other times we would all have an after school activity together like intramural sports or working on costumes for our senior year production of the Wizard of OZ.


When we didn't have school we would go to Michelle's house and get a movie from Blockbuster and hang out in her den. Or go to Friendly's were Michelle would order the Fishamajig sandwich fairly consistently. There were even trips into New York City to see a Broadway show. And two trips across the ocean the first to France and the second to Switzerland and Italy. The point is what began as a frustrating wait for some Latin textbooks became a friendship that had the three of us referring to each other as "Triplets."

I wish I remembered why we posed like this.

I keep going over some of my favorite memories with her and there are a lot. Like one funny example of how small the world is. Meg and I worked at McDonald's in high school and we were telling Michelle about funny/interesting/ and annoying customers. So we were telling her about one customer who always ordered a grilled chicken sandwich but wanted everything separate: lettuce in one box, tomato in another box, bread in a third, and chicken in a fourth. Michelle began laughing because the customer who we knew as "the chicken lady" was her Nanny when she was a child.

A reenactment of the salute.

I think it was senior year when we made up army ranks for various teachers and one day the three of us were walking down the hall with Meg on one side, Michelle in the middle, and me on the other side when one of our teachers entered the hall. We all stopped simultaneously and saluted. Never before or after did we get the timing so perfect.



We travelled to Europe together and viewed the beaches at Normandy and visited the National Cemetery with gravestone after gravestone as far as we could see. We spent part of a night in a haunted hotel room until we couldn't take it any longer and moved to a different room. We stood under the Eiffel Tower and visited Venice, Florence, and Rome.

Our trip to France was in 1998 and the World Cup was being played there. Not only that but our last night in France was a playoff game that would send the winner to the final game and France was in that game. Not realizing that we could go into bars we walked around the Champs-Elysees trying to look in and see the score. At some point we heard lots and lots of screaming and cheering and we turned to an older man on the road and asked "did we just win?" Luckily for us he was an Englishman and he was slightly confused but then answered "yes  we won." The French team went on to beat Brazil and become "the Champs."

Vive la France!

A year later we were in a hotel room in Switzerland when there was a noise that startled me. I jumped on the bed to close the window and broke the bed. The slats fell through to the floor. Michelle and Meghan, the girl scout and genius, spent the next hour or so fixing the bed. We couldn't get the slats to bend back in so one of them came up with the idea to fill the tub with water and soak the slats so that the wood would become more pliable. Then armed with our Swiss Army knives we had stereotypically bought in Switzerland we bent the slats back and repaired the bed.

We saw the Phantom of the Opera and the Scarlet Pimpernel on Broadway, the latter making such an impression that on a Year Book page congratulating the three of us we had multiple references to it.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Also there were adventures in driver's ed (we really were inseparable in high school.) Our driver's ed teacher was obsessed with the Amityville Horror house and we spent the better part of our classes with Michelle driving first so that we passed the house, me doing a three point turn, and Meghan driving home.

Prom group photo

And of course there was prom night when after leaving the prom we went to play laser tag and ended the night in a Diner.

After Prom laser tag

And then high school ended and we went north to New Hampshire while Michelle went south to North Carolina.

Ahh the 90s

Our second day of classes our sophomore year was 9/11/01 and the attack on the World Trade Center. Michelle was still in NY because her semester was starting late as she would be spending it abroad. So she was in NY and the amazing human being that she is when our city was attacked she went to help others. It was an experience that changed and effected her. Michelle had always had a drive to help and care for others but I think this strengthened that in her.

Rye Playland

It was at this point where it became increasingly clear that we would never be in the same state at the same time. Our friendship survived through phone calls and texts and on social media. Each time no matter how long had gone by we would pick up as if no time had passed. It isn't even like we had to fill each other in on what was going on. It was like we somehow knew and would just continue. I feel like Michelle had a sixth sense because every time she would call me I would have just been thinking, "I wonder how Michelle is? Or its been awhile since I last spoke to Michelle"









But time did pass and I wish it hadn't. I always thought there would be time later. Sure our lives had diverged but there would always be more time to call and talk and visit. I took it for granted that there would be time and ended up wasting it because now there is no more time.






So what made this friendship so special? Well remember when we first met how I said I didn't really think much about meeting someone. For a variety of reasons Meg and I were very isolated. We had each other as friends and didn't really see a need to worry about other friends. But Michelle was willing to put in the work. And she showed Meg and myself that we did need and want friends. Michelle made every friendship I have ever had from high school to today possible. Not only that but like I said in the beginning we called her our triplet. A few months ago I dug out some of our pictures from high school. I don't think that it is an accident that basically when ever the three of us were together Michelle was always in the middle. Physically symbolically whatever she was a part of us. She broke through a wall we had built and I don't know that anyone else could have done that.

We were so young.

"Rae's girls all three", "Triplets", and a "Terrific Trio" is how we described ourselves.

So many inside jokes :-)

Every time we left PA these past few months I thought to myself "I'm not ready to see her for the last time." Truth is I was never going to be ready I'm still not. But I know I'm not alone in feeling that way and thinking that way. I know there are a lot of other people in NY, MA, PA, NC, Grenada, MS, and countless other places that feel the same way. Michelle loved people. She loved them she cared for them she wanted to help and protect other people all the time. Some of it was learned from her parents and from years as a girl scout but also I think it was just who she was it was the way she was born. It is no accident she found her calling as a doctor, a surgeon. Performing plastic surgery was just an outward manifestation of what she already did for people on the inside, she made them feel whole.

I can think of no better way to celebrate her life then to continue in a way that would make her proud. It's as simple as be kind to others. She always wanted others to feel like they belonged and were wanted. I am just one of the many who have been changed and made better because I knew her. She truly was in a league of her own.

Monday September 23rd should be her 37th birthday, well it still is, but this time she isn't a text or call away. It just doesn't make sense. How can everything be going so well and then fall apart in a matter of months?

Michelle deserved so much happiness. Not that everyone doesn't but she really deserved it. She was so good. And here she was finally done with school, in a plastic surgery practice, and not only that but she was in the best shape of her life. Her life and career was falling into place perfectly. Everything she had been working for was coming to fruition.

At her graduation when she finished her plastic surgery program my Mom gave her a beautiful painting that had been painted specifically for her, based on a design that my Mom had imagined, by a local Nashville artist.

Mom and Michelle

Michelle was supposed to get married Labor Day weekend at the Aquarium on Long Island. Shortly after learning she had cancer I called her, not really understanding how serious it was or maybe hoping it wasn't as bad as I thought. I asked her if she had plans for her Bachelorette or if I could help plan something.

I don't understand because there was so much good she still had to do. Not only being a model for her family and friends but the countless patients she could have helped and young doctors she could have mentored. 

It just doesn't make sense why her? Why didn't treatments work? Cancer is so random and cold. Treatment should have worked she should have recovered that would make sense and then she would go on with her life and career. There were certainly lots of people praying for her. I prayed for her every night to God to St. Peregrine, the patron saint of those who suffer from cancer. And so I sit here grieving but also I am so angry at how senseless this loss is. I want the world to follow some kind of logic and order and this doesn't at all. There is no logic and order to cancer. It serves no purpose.

Or how do I rectify this pain with a loving God. Because a loving God would have listened to prayers and realized this was a special person with a lot of good to do. She was someone who the world needed. And why does God answer one prayer and not another? All the wasted prayers for New York Ranger wins, David Cone's Perfect game I prayed for an out with every pitch, tests in school, or promotions and raises at work, and the Solar Eclipse of 2017 I prayed for perfect weather. 

Did I waste all my answered prayers on nonsense? 

Because I would trade them all for these prayers to have been answered. 

At the back of my Year Book Senior year was a poem I had written I think during my sophomore year. It certainly hit hard when I read it after looking through the year book for pictures of Michelle.

Goodbye

Today I say goodbye

for now I shall not cry. 

The sun has set on this day

To send you on your long long way.

The sun will rise for me tomorrow,

Then I may show some sorrow

To think that now we shall part

Hurts and breaks my poor, poor heart.

Greater loss I have not felt

Than this which just now I was dealt.

With all the days and ever more

You shall be as you were before,

My best friend through all the years.

So here's to you, I toast with cheers

For all the love that we have shared

And how much we all do care

Through good time and bad time,

Through endless nights and suns that shine.

And so we shall remain

And never shall we change,

For now we have a perfect score

As best friends forever more.