On April 16, 2015, Beth O’Rourke of Paxton, Massachusetts passed away after fighting stage for biliary cancer for 7 years. At only 44, she was taken from this world way too soon. However, she left her friends and family an extraordinary gift in the form of a self written obituary.
She basically conveys through her emotional words that while cancer can ravage and take away an individual’s body, it can never really take his or her life.
In this obituary, she talks about how much she loves her husband and her two wonderful children. She also talks about nursing, which was her calling that enabled her to help so many people. She talks about all of the wonderful experience she has had in her life, and how much she loved her life.
She speaks of how little power cancer actually has when she says the following: “We were clung only to each other with pure love and faith binding us, in the end is when the most amazing thing happens[…]Cancer loses its strength and grace appears… We accept it, and go with it. Grace and love win, not cancer.”

Beth was obviously an amazing woman who didn’t want to give cancer any power that she did not have to give. She will always be remembered in the hearts of her family members, and it is wonderful that she left them with this one last piece of herself that will help them remember exactly who she was as a person.