The quote is from ” C.S. Lewis’ Little book of Wisdom”.

On February 9, 2024, I jotted in a journal, “I visited with Dana, took Apple Crisp. Her MRI report doesn’t sound good”. The visit was following several episodes of illness, visits in and out of hospitals for her, and they were beginning to hone in on the culprit of her suffering. The apple dessert was made with apples she had picked and shared from her backyard and I had canned them. She shared first. All the time.

It wasn’t supposed to be this post. I am supposed to be planning a celebration of cancer remission with the many friends who have prayed for her, visited with her, and hoped with her. But she had lived long enough and served in the field of nursing long enough to know there are no absolutes or guarantees in life. Other than the one she voiced several times: “God is my strength”. On the sunny morning of February 23, I received a text from Dana saying malignant cells were found in her liver. It was not to grieve, but to ask for prayer, and to keep me from having to hear from anyone else what she knew would not be easy to hear. I cried a lot. On the 28th she was home, waiting for a plan; as always, optimistic. As February turned into March, information for plan of care was not as good as she had hoped. Supper, flowers, prayers, encouraging words all seemed so little; so very very little in effort to make the news feel better. A roller coaster ride was to be her life with talk of transplant, then no; surgery, then no; port and biopsies; finally a Vanderbilt team and a chemo plan. Dana was so relieved to finally have a plan. Two Fridays in to Nashville and one Friday home; wash, rinse, repeat.

Throughout the following months we swapped plants, plant pictures and conversed about plants. It was our favorite of the many things we had in common. Time for me passed in the mundane ordinary stuff of life; never take that for granted. NEVER take it for granted. The beautiful ordinary uneventful day to day life that Dana would have loved to be doing, was put on hold. But she kept being the beautiful thoughtful friend she always was.

With each new test/image/plan of care, Dana Lynn Bazzell looked it in the eye, chin up and walked straight forward bravely to meet her foe. I never heard nor saw a moment of wanting pity. In fact she worked to keep the conversations about everything else. And there were a lot of everything else’s to keep us busy because she just loved life. Plants, people, animals, cooking, nursing career memories, nurse assessment of her lab values, and what to eat when we reached our destination, were some of the topics. As many others know, Dana herself made the trips to cancer treatments an adventure, not a job to get done. She just didn’t see how allowing her friends to drive her to treatments, blessed us. She couldn’t stop saying thank you. On June 21, my last time to get to take her to Nashville, she took cookies to my daughter, and gifted me samples of my favorite perfume. I will always think of Dana when I smell J’adore L’Or. It is a beautiful soft gardenia-type fragrance; like her friendship. Gardenia’s were one of her specialties. I hate so much that my knee replacement bumped me out of the travel posse.

I want to say how much I hate cancer. It is a thief, an evil, like sin, straight from the devil himself. Since the fall of mankind there have been sufferings to endure and battles to fight. Dana would be the first to tell us Jesus died to defeat sin and death. Sometimes a cancer cannot be defeated in life, and requires a life to be given to stop it. Dana defeated her cancer February 7, 2025. I lost a friend who encouraged me, taught me how to be a better friend; how to save and transplant seedlings; how to share life. And I’m heartbroken that I didn’t get to keep her.

In one of her last texts, January 29, she said she just needed sleep. Rest now my friend. We will miss you Dana Lynn Harrison Bazzell.