My friend Whitney Rossman died on Wednesday after a formidable battle with cancer. Why formidable? Because I have never seen anyone just drive, drive, drive with an interminable energy to simply keep going no matter what the Universe was throwing at her.
I met Whitney for the first time on a Freecoast cruise years ago. She and Jacob M Rossman and Louis Calitz and I shared a table on the boat, and something just “clicked.” It felt a bit to me like we were meeting younger, perhaps slightly cooler, “American” versions of ourselves.
Whitney was a force of nature. A wild woman. But also, she listened, and helped. Years ago, she connected me with a friend of hers who found herself with an unwanted pregnancy. We tried to figure out a private adoption, but in the end, the woman chose to terminate. Even though that happened, I was grateful to Whitney for trying to create a better outcome.
We attended the kids’ birthday parties when we could, and if I saw Whitney somewhere, at a party or PorcFest, I would try to be around her because she was always simply an awesome, laugh-out-loud hang. I loved soaking up her shine.
From her fierce way of no-bullshit talking to the way she owned her hair loss and her treatments, I admired her. I admired how I never heard her complain. I admired how she showed up at the health freedom rallies, advocating for the right to remain un-vaccinated and still receive medical treatments. (How sad is that sentence?)
In looking back through our DMs, I admire how she would follow up on small and big things. I loved that she read my book and found value in it (see Memory below).
Some people burn too bright on this plane, and that is how Whitney struck me. Like her fire was simply too much for this time and place.
I am so sad she is gone, my thoughts are with Jake and the children, but I am also relieved she is no longer in pain, no longer has to put on a brave face, no longer has to push, push, push through.
R.I.P. Whitney Rossman. You were so-super baller, every moment I spent with you was time spent wisely (even when we were perhaps doing unwise things 
), and I will miss you. Dude! Peace out. 
UPDATE: We attended Whitney’s memorial on Saturday, and it is testament to her amazing spirit to see more than a hundred people, from the nurse from her ward to her best friend from Kindergarten, attend.
