By The Pajiba Staff | Film | March 26, 2009 |
By The Pajiba Staff | Film | March 26, 2009 |
Amanda “AlabamaPink” Amos died yesterday due to complications from her leukemia. She leaves behind a loving husband, a three-year-old son, and countless admirers.
She was the bravest person we’ve ever known.
We are otherwise at a loss for words. We’ve never met Amanda, but she became a part of this place several years ago — she was one of the original Eloquents. Over the last year or so, since she was diagnosed with cancer, we’ve followed her battles with leukemia. And even when several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation failed, she never lost hope. What was even more inspiring about Amanda was the way she faced cancer with brave determination and an unflinching sense of humor. She was amazing. Amanda was in Houston getting experimental treatments for leukemia when she passed.
She meant a ton to us, and the people on this site meant a lot to her, too. She sent a handwritten letter a few months ago, written on a handmade card she and her son had created, and — appropriately — Alice in Wonderland stationary. In it, she wrote:
“During the entire clusterfuck of a spring and summer as I slogged through this cancer mess, I have never felt alone. I know that even in some of my worst moments, flying solo in the hospital, I can post my blabbering out onto the Internet, and magically people across the continent and beyond respond — with love and support … without the quirky as fuck little community at Pajiba, I’d be without some of the lifeboat of support that has carried me this far.”
During the last year, Amanda inspired a lot in us. She brought out the prayers and hopes of a community that more often than not, relishes in squashing them. She inspired The Girl with Curious Hair to run a marathon. She inspired Prisco’s Cannonball Run. And she made many of us think about how we’d deal with the same hand if it were dealt to us. Not a one of us, I can imagine, would’ve managed it as well as Amanda.
Amanda had strength the rest of us can only hope to have. She was a warrior queen with a a beautiful smile and a heart like no other. She was the original Cannonball Reader, and her son, Little A, was the inspiration for Whiskeybabyninjastar. She is, and always will be, a part of this community. What will we do now? We find the ones we love and hold them tight. We give blood. We give bone marrow, if possible. None of these things will bring her back. But we can honor her, and never forget her.
As recently as two weeks ago, Amanda was still leaving the occasional comment here from her hospital bed. In her last one, early this month, she railed against our Hollywood overlords, God bless her. After mentioning what a wiz her three-year-old is with child-proof caps, she left us a typically Pajiban final rant:
“I don’t think it really matters how old Wolverine is to the makers of this movie. They’ve already funked seriously with Wolverine’s origin and the timeline by throwing Gambit and Emma Frost in there at what looks like his pre-X-Men days. Plus, X-Men 2 already wrecked the Lady Deathstrike story. This whole movie (Ryan Reynolds or no Ryan Reynolds) really gets the geeky teenage comic fan in me pissed off. They’ve messed with Emma Frost/The White Queen-one of my favorite characters in the X-Men universe. That’s enough for me to swear it off all together. So I guess I need to stop giving my uncle shit about his bitching over the new Star Trek movie and how it messes with that origins story.”
In that letter that Amanda wrote, she quotes a passage from a book she was reading, a poem that reminded her of this stupid little website.
In the dark here
I remember your loving hugs
Urging me on.
I can still see you gathered
Such an unlikely family
And I know I can find my way home.
Amanda is home now, and from the outside looking into her windows, we want to thank her for letting us be a small part of her wonderful, courageous life.
Click here to read more about AlabamaPink’s passing and about how you can help.
Click here to read AlabamaPink’s Top 10 Comments.