Valerie

I met Valerie at an ad agency where I was a newbie and she was a freelance illustrator for the art department, rendering television storyboards and drawing samples of print ads for presentations to clients before there were Macs and Photoshop.

Like all unexpected good things, I met her by chance, introduced while picking up materials for my account manager and I can't even remember the moment our relationship changed from colleagues to friends.

She saw me through my disappointing dating life and late nights at the office. She was always cracking jokes, primarily for her own amusement and she gave me a lot of welcomed advice acting as the big sister I never had. She had an unyielding work ethic, combining waitressing and agency work to afford her one bedroom in Astoria before it was a hip neighborhood. She hosted my family for dinner at her husband's restaurant, danced at my wedding, wore a baby carpenter ant's costume at my Halloween baby shower (don't ask) and brought my son his Blue's Clues singing doll for his second birthday. Her caricatures of me and my husband are lovingly framed in our bedroom to wake up and see each morning.

I mention her life and our times here because October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and Valerie succumbed to this disease over a decade ago. Knowing what we know now, I don't know if she would have had a similar fate today. But the fact is, we all have a Valerie in our lives — taken away from loving friends and family all too soon. It is in her memory and for all those we know and have known fighting this disease that we remember, honor, and especially donate to the charity we feel is best to end breast cancer.

Sometimes this column is easy to write. Sometimes it is hard. Rarely is it both.

But that's because of who Val is to me. Challenging, rare, life changing. I am who I am in many ways because of her light and her smile.

A contributing writer to the Herald since 2012, Lauren Lev is an East Meadow resident and a direct marketing/advertising executive who teaches advertising and marketing communications courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology/SUNY, LIU Post and SUNY Old Westbury.