October 19, 2013 was an interesting day for me.
First, my brother Richard picked me up early and we took a train to New York. My brother has been to New York a couple of times and was excited to show me the sights. We were on a tight schedule since the benefit was starting at 2pm, so we didn’t get to see everything we wanted to see.
I walked through Times Square, we went to Grays Papaya’s, the Museum of Sex, we stared up at the Empire state building. We had a lot of brother-sister bonding time that we don’t usually get due to our busy lives. We laughed, we stared at the sights, we instragrammed.
We were taking pictures of Washington Square Park when I noticed the time. 1:50pm.
“We should head over” he said.
I got a nervous flutter in my stomach. So this was it. I was going to meet all these strangers and I’m pretty sure none of them would have their twitter handles in a big sign above their heads. How would I know who was who? I mean I knew what some of them looked like but how do you start a normal conversation with a lead in like ‘I’m the Queen who are you?’
How wrong I was.
I was not meeting strangers, I met my friends. I met people who embraced me warmly, hugged and kissed me as if we had known each other since 1st grade. I didn’t once feel like I was in the company of strangers. I saw my friends. I put faces to names and made a real connection with real people.
And I met Will, our reason for coming together. I gave him my PepperKeet shirt. I wanted him to have something from me that meant something to both of us, since Ron and Fez were the reason we met. I never had more fun and more laughs then I did that night. So many beautiful people that have come into my life and made it better.
And at the time of this writing, Will was told that his tumor is stable and it has the genetic markers of 90% of long-term survivors. Talk about good news! I want nothing more than to see this man raise his daughter with his beautiful wife and lead a dull life into old age.
But if nothing else, thank you everyone. Thank you for calling me friend. Thank you for greeting me with a smile. There was a lot of love in that room that night and I certainly felt it.
Cheers!
QE
p.s. Ladies…how hot was Jay from Huntington? Nice surprise there huh? LMAO
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