When someone dies, we eulogize and celebrate her life. When she’s dying, we muse about her death. We talk about what could have been and should have been and weep for what never will be.
But Lauren Hill is still here. So she’d rather talk about life, about what is. And on Saturday morning, as she drove with her family from their home in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, to Cincinnati for Sunday’s game, she wants to talk about basketball.
“Is it 2:00 on Sunday yet? Is that the buzzer to start the game? Is the whistle being blown to toss the opening tip-off?” Lauren said. “I’m so glad it’s here, but I try not to think that far ahead. Right now, I’m thinking about going to practice and being with my team. We have a walk-through today.”
Hill is that woman you’ve heard about somewhere, maybe on ESPN, maybe on Facebook, maybe in the newspaper, perhaps on early morning TV. She’s the college freshman basketball player who was diagnosed with brain cancer her senior year of high school, after signing with Division III Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
She’s the girl whose parents, after her tumor spread and she was given only a few months to live, worked with her college coach, the opposing team’s coach and the NCAA to move her team’s opening game up by two weeks in the hopes that she will still be strong enough to suit up for one collegiate game.
The 19-year-old has been giving interviews and fighting publicly in the hopes of bringing attention to the rare form of brain cancer from which she will die. And she’s the girl whose story garnered so much attention that the site of Mount St. Joe’s Sunday game against Hiram College was moved to Xavier University’s Cintas Center, and the 10,000-seat arena sold out within a day.
But Hill is more than that freshman you heard about somewhere. She’s also a daughter to Lisa and Brent, and a big sister to Erin, 14, and Nathan, 17. She’s a soccer fan, has a creative eye and loves music, all types of music, just not screamo.
She’s a fan of the Harlem Globetrotters, was painfully shy before her diagnosis and is a wiz with Photoshop. She likes to shoot videos and edit them for her family, and you know that image that’s been going around online, the one of Lauren standing with her hands on her hips in her high school uniform, the one that was shot from behind and adorns #1More4Lauren images on Twitter? She designed that herself. “I’m really proud of that,” Hill said.
Since the date of the game was officially moved, Hill has been counting down the days, anticipating the opening tip-off, living for Nov. 2, some might say. But she knows as acutely as anyone that tomorrow is not promised, and when game day comes, she might be too sick or too weak or in too much pain to play.
The tumor causes migraines and has weakened the right side of her body. The medicine makes her nauseous; it makes her joints ache and her face and body swell and does little to dampen the pain. She has good days and awful days and she tries to make the most of both.
Around her family, she is stoic and pragmatic but sometimes breaks down beneath the weight of it all. She doesn’t know how tomorrow will go, so she rarely allows her mind to wander too many hours ahead. “I still can’t believe how big this is,” Hill said. “I feel like I’m in a dreamlike state most of the time. But I just try to think about right now.”
And right now is 24 hours before tip-off of the biggest game of her life.