Emily Hayward, the effervescent lover of working out, all things healthy, pretty hotels that stash cameras everywhere for visitors to take pictures and, most importantly, her wife Aisha Hayward-Hasan has passed away from an 8 year-battle with malignant melanoma.
As someone with my own chronic illness, I found myself taken with Emily's journey on Youtube maybe six months ago. I wasn't the only one; she left behind over 50,000 subscribers. It seemed like every one of us noticed she hadn't vlogged in four days. We saw her eyes change, like a part of her was in the next world, a part here. Our eternal hero was MIA.
We wrote well-wishes and prayers on her newsfeed.
It wasn't until yesterday, when I opened Instagram, sitting on my porch, ten minutes from New York City, and a world away from Bromley, UK where she resided with her wife that I saw this:
What’s going on guys? After 8 long years of kicking cancer in the ass my body got tired, I achieved everything I wanted to and more. With all my loved ones around me I have now peacefully left you all. Thank you all for your love and support, but most of all thank you for always following my journey and believing in me. Love you all, peace Em x
I saw her leaving. As someone who's been dealing with illness for almost a decade, I feel like I witnessed the moment her spirit left her eyes, as her partner tried to talk her back and keep her here.
Even so, I was not ready for her to leave just yesterday. I sat on my porch and cried my eyes out. Another hero has exited this world. We will see her again.
I always note to my husband how I dislike it when people say, "She/he is gonna beat this! They're a fighter!" For me, it implies that all the little lights I loved that passed via cancer were not fighters. That's just wrong. Inaccurate.
Emily Hayward was a fighter, and so much more. She was a fighter, lover of so many things...she taught those of us who know we are dying a bit sooner than the rest, how to live despite that knowledge. She was a fighter and she's changed this world. I know she's changed mine.
Last night I stared at the moon, thinking this was the first moon I was aware of that she wasn't here to see. I was so in touch with that moon, with Aisha who was inexhaustible in her love for Em and her unwavering positivity, with her parents. I wanted to thank them for sharing her with us, with helping her help us, for everything.
Emily Hayward did not succumb to cancer. Cancer did not beat her. She accomplished her Divine Appointment, she fought like hell to get there, and went when she had accomplished all she needed to accomplish.
She won, and I am grateful.
