Lessons from a 16-year-old’s on fleek life - and her extraordinary death

Abby Shapiro�s death can teach us one simple thing: The small ways you live your life every day are what matter.

Abby was just 16. And a really good swimmer. She thought Ethiopian food was �on fleek� (her favorite phrase to describe something awesome). And she did this hilarious Russian accent
A pretty average 16-year-old, you�d think
But when her parents started receiving hundreds of condolence e-mails and about 600 people showed up at her memorial service in Bethesda on Thursday - so many that people had to peer in through the windows of the Temple Adat Shalom - her impact on the world became a little clearer


The hundreds of high school students gathered at her funeral? No one was talking about hair, clothes, make-up, Instagram selfies - the foundations of teendom. None of those things made people love Abby
They loved her because she was real. And kind. And unfiltered
�There were no mind games or BS or trivial fluff with her,� Isabel Brown, 17, said in a tribute to her. �She was just so genuinely and unforgivingly Abby.� She died only months after a mundane nagging knee pain was diagnosed as osteosarcoma - a type of bone cancer - that quickly spread from her knee to her spine, throughout her central nervous system, to her lungs and to her bra

In April, she started getting calls from college recruiters interested in having such a strong breastroker join their swim teams. About a month later, she was paralyzed and bed-ridd
. Her parents, Trudy Vincent and Rick Shapiro, went from making college plans for their only child to funeral plans in just five mont
. It was a swift and slow-motion death all at on
. Her friends visited her in the hospital, kept her updated on their summers, talked college and senior year and Taylor Swift. The day they went back to school, doctors were telling Abby�s parents that they didn�t think she�d make it through the nig

Health news: in pictu
s Most teen deaths are far more sudden and violent - car accidents, drug overdoses, daredeviling, suicide. And kids grieve with rallies against drunken driving or with self-esteem seminars, counseling or peer suppo
. But this? What can anyone learn from the cruelty of this kind of rapacious, random and merciless canc
? Abby�s own way of living. That�s what there is to learn he
. She was so utterly herself that she was infectious. She was loud, hungry, funny and in­cred­ibly brave. And because every person - her teachers, her doctors, her friends, her neighbors - had the same description, you also know that she was re

The swim team members who spoke at her service didn�t say she was a naturally gifted, effortlessly winning swimmer. Because she wasn
. But she was dogged in her dedication. She got up at 4 a.m. to practice, then went to school, then got back in the pool to practice some more. She trained and trained, willing and sculpting her average, teen body into that of a champion swimm
. The naturally gifted swimmers, those born with the broad, strong shoulders and paddle-sized hands, said they�d see her outpratice, outwork them. �She inspired us all,� one swimmer s

And when she did break her own records, shatter her own walls, what did she do? She went around congratulating her teammates on their great times, not her
n. The way she lived her life in that pool was what people remember. Not her best ti
s. When her girl squad talked about boys, the advice Abby got was to tone things down, to be less raucous around boys. She did the exact oppos
e. �In eighth grade, I taught a class that included a group of boys who seemed taken aback by the fact that Abby could, and would, stand her ground and give back at least as much as she received,� said Steve O�Keefe, one of Abby�s teachers at Edmund Burke Custom Promotion Gifts School. �I don�t think the boys were prepared for her strength of character, feistiness and strong sense of se
.�

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rows Scientists may have found a way to 'turn off c
cer' There were few people, Rick Shapiro said, more ill-suited to face cancer than
bby. As a young child, she watched her aunt�s long and painful death from breast cancer. After that, she was completely phobic about doctors, clinics, hospitals and needles. Even as a teenager, her parents had to sneak-surprise-kidnap her to the doctor for annual

s.

But on her deathbed? She was grace, strength and co
age. �She taught me what true bravery is,� said David Bushey, a Georgetown Medical School resident who was one of her doctors. �She was the strongest person I ever met.� Throughout her chemo, her medication, experimental drugs, MRIs and paralysis, she was upbeat. She didn�t dwell, self-pity or
press. Her nurses told me they�ve seen many children die, but none died li
Abby. �She took us into her squad, she trusted us. I�ve never seen someone treat everyone else like this before,� said Jamie Miller, one of Abby�s nurses. Every day, she�d ask each nurse and doctor about their boyfriends, their wives, their issues. She�d joke and laugh and put them at ease, as though she were the one i

arge.

She never complained about the pain or the very fact that she was 16 and staring down death, her frie
s said. While she was in the hospital, she stopped watching television. She said it wasn�t productive, her parents said. Instead, she made bracelets and art projects for her
riends. In those last days, when all her friends were getting ready to head back to school and she was paralyzed from the chest down and on a ventilator that put 60 pounds of pressure on her face to force air into her lungs, she insisted that her parents set up an independent study program

her.

She didn�t want her grades to slip. Even though she clearly must have known her end
s near. Two days before she died, she was still trying to finish an art project that was a gift for
friend. Her parents have a stack of eight or 10 promotion gifts she made for them to
nd out. �One of the many lessons I learned from all this was that being who you are - being true to yourself - is what brings people to you,� said Sara Moss, 25, one of Abby�s close family friends. �We were all talking about this, about what people remember

t you.

And that was it. Being genuine. Being real.
nd kind. �At 16, she had such an impact because of these basic things.� Yes, a 16-year-old can have a legacy. And the one that Abby left behind is totall
on fleek. � The Was

ton Post

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