Shari Lee McLean

And if you knew Shari, you know that those three letters could never begin to contain the woman she was.

In high school, Shari and a friend once pawned their class rings to provide Christmas for a local family whose father had recently passed away. During the Christmas pageant, Santa sat on a trunk filled with everything the family would need to begin again. At the end of the festivities, while the other children received their gifts, that family received the entire trunk.

Shari's friend told this story years later. Shari never did.

That, in itself, tells you everything you need to know about her. She didn't do good things for recognition or praise. She did them because someone needed help, and helping was simply who she was. Even then, she understood that the value of a gift had very little to do with shiny metal or glass, and everything to do with the love behind it.

Shari spent the early part of her adulthood doing what many of us do: she got married, had children, worked hard, sang songs, drank hot wine in the desert, and developed a reputation as a health-food-pushing hippie. She lived life on her own terms, loved fiercely, and gave generously.

Growing up, our home was the safe house. You could knock on the window and let yourself in. There was always an extra plate, an extra blanket, and more than enough love to go around. It didn't matter who you were, where you came from, or what kind of day you'd had. If you needed somewhere to land, there was room for you.

That was Shari's way. She made people feel like they belonged.

On January 22, 2000, Shari died.

Our mom died. Several times, actually.

But Shari was never one to go down without one hell of a fight—as she would prove again throughout her cancer journey—and somehow, she made her way back to us.

She told us about what she experienced during that time. She described it as beautiful, a sort of waiting room where Earl told her she had to come back. And so she did. The blood rerouted through her system, and she sprang back to life.

Naturally, this is one of the many reasons we've come to suspect that our mother was at least part alien.

Shari just had more living to do.

She watched her daughters get married and become mothers of their own. She downed jello shots with her eldest (like a pro) at celebrations. She met every one of her grandchildren, each one a prized possession. And Shari's capacity for love was never limited by biology, circumstance, or where someone came from. Once you entered her orbit, you became hers.

(To be fair, The same could be said for rocks.)

Eventually, Shari reconnected with Doug, the man who felt like home. Their relationship grew into a marriage and a new chapter of life. With Doug came three more children, including a son, and eventually more grandchildren and grandpuppers to add to the ever-growing collection of people and creatures she loved. And he loved her. If love alone could have cured cancer, she surely would have beaten it.

Shari never needed much to be happy. She wanted time. She wanted memories. She wanted a campfire, a starry sky, and someone playing an acoustic guitar nearby. She found beauty in the simple things and understood that the moments we remember most are rarely the ones that cost the most.

Her favorite color was tie-dye, which feels fitting for a woman who seemed to contain every color of the rainbow. So when you see one, take a moment. Smile. We wouldn't be surprised if you felt her smiling right back.

As a mother, Shari was truly the best.

Whether she was decorating a Dairy Queen cake that had been messed up on "Becka's" birthday, taking one of her daughters to a midday showing of The Little Mermaid, grabbing money from a tube at the Ostrich Festival, driving cross-country to New York, showing up for soccer, dance, Girl Scouts, or swim team, or fighting passionately for her children, she did the damn thing.

She showed up. She figured it out. She made things happen.

She was the mother who made memories out of ordinary days and who would fight for her children with every ounce of herself. She lived without much concern for the opinions of others, danced to her own beat, and played by her own rules. She drew and painted, and saw beauty in every part of the world. She gave more love and light than most of us could ever hope to deliver in a lifetime.

And she wasn't perfect. None of us are. But she was real, she was unforgettable, and she loved us with a force that we will carry for the rest of our lives.

As daughters, there are so many questions we wish we'd asked and stories we wish we'd heard. I was about thirteen or fourteen when I "stumbled" across a journal Shari had written as a teenager. One entry read, "Smoked something new today, Columbian I think."

And Mom?!?!? We. Need. Details.

There is so much we will never know about the girl she was before she became our mom. Our wonderwoman. We wish we'd asked more questions. We wish we'd had more time. We wish we could sit with her now and hear all the stories she never thought to tell us.

But perhaps that is part of the gift of losing someone we love: we begin to understand just how many lives they lived before we knew them, how much there was to discover, and how much of them remains for us to carry forward.

Shari is survived by her beloved husband, Doug; her children, Bonnie, Becky, Nathan, Leia, and Jessica; their spouses, Christopher, JD, Karen, Chris, and Chad; her grandchildren, Trevor, Kaylinn, Leeanna, Natalie, Dani, Zachary, Owen, Bradley, and Emily; her brother, Paul; and her sweet fur baby, Syrah. She also leaves behind countless friends, extended family members, and people who may not have shared her last name but were lucky enough to belonged to her world.

Her parents preceded her in death, and although she surely was excited for that reunion, she was most excited to give a grandma hug to Addison, whom we lost much too soon.

Years ago, during a particularly rough time in our lives, we bought an auction vehicle just to get by. It was a Mitsubishi Montero, and there on the dashboard cover were three familiar letters: SLM.

Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was something more. All we know is that the vehicle helped save us in more ways than one, and those initials felt like a little reminder that our mom had found another way to look after us. She was ALWAYS looking after us. Sending angels, and white light our way.

That was Shari. Even when we couldn't see her, we could still find her.

The world may feel darker without her in it, but the light she gave us hasn't disappeared. It lives in every person she made feel welcome, every child she helped, every friend she stood beside, every memory she created, and every act of kindness that continues because she taught us what love looks like.

If you want to honor Shari, you don't need to do anything grand. Make someone smile. Donate to a charity that supports children with cancer. Buy popcorn from a Scout. Invite someone to your table. Give someone an extra blanket. Take the long way home. Sit around a campfire beneath a starry sky. Dance when the music moves you. Be a little weird. Be a little wild. Be unapologetically yourself. Have a glass (or two) of wine.

Whatever you do, do it with love.

And love bigly.

We will spend the rest of our lives trying to find words big enough to describe the woman who made us, raised us, fought for us, and taught us how to love. We know we will never quite get there.

But we hope she knows how deeply she is loved, how fiercely she is missed, and how much of her lives on in us. We hope we've made her proud. And we hope that, in our own ways, we can continue to live as she did: giving freely, loving without reservation, finding beauty in the ordinary, and caring very little about what the rest of the world thinks.

We'll look for her in the rainbows, in the starry skies, around the campfires, in the rocks we can't seem to leave behind, and in the moments when we find ourselves loving someone just a little bigger than we thought we could.

We ALL love you.

Always and bigly.

and also, F*ck Cancer!