Melissa Riggio: Our Honored Teammate

Melissa Riggio was your average girl. She grew up in a pretty normal family, with two sisters and two parents. She went to school, was on the swim team, had an eye for style -- especially handbags -- and her favorite color morphed from pink as a little girl to the more trendy green or orange as a teenager. Melissa wrote beautiful poetry -- simple, clean lines from the heart. She was a wonderful friend, and made those friends easily. She wanted to go to college and get married. She was just like many of us at that age. Melissa did all of these things and more, and because she had Down syndrome, these normal things take on more meaning. That being said, she was much more than just a diagnosis, or a disability.

Being a lucky girl, she had a family that loved her and supported her, and they gave her opportunities that allowed her to fully blossom. She met some pretty amazing people and they, too, fell in love with her and her determination to live life as it was meant to be lived: fully, joyfully, and with a strong sense of humor. Her list of accomplishments by age 18 was also impressive: She wrote an article on Down syndrome for National Geographic Kids. She co-hosted a Down syndrome event at Barnes & Noble with Sesame Street's Bob McGrath. Two of her poems were put to music by singer/songwriter Rachel Fuller: "Love Is a Potion" and "The Ring."

I’m in the Ring outside
I’m following my belief
I’m looking at the sky
I saw God following my heart
I’m an ordinary woman

The Ring is falling down my way
The wind is blowing me away
The Ring is falling down,
down my way
The wind is blowing me away

And so I came back to
The center of the Ring
Am I just a broken angel?
God has sent me here to heal
To be an ordinary woman

Oh, and she was also crowned Prom Queen by her fellow students at Bernards High School. Surrounded by love, respect and admiration by those around her, she owned and overcame her disability, and had every intention of going on with her life just as her family had taught her.

At the age of 19, Melissa became ill, and she was diagnosed with AML -- acute myelogenous leukemia. It's not the most common of the leukemias, and it's quite uncommon to develop AML at such an age. (As a person with Down syndrome, Melissa was actually most at risk for ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia), which is also the most common cancer in children.) AML starts in the bone marrow itself, and it grows cancer cells instead of blood cells like red and white ones. It's most common in people over 65, and pretty rare for people under 40. As you might expect, Melissa fought this too with courage and humor, but an infection ended her life at 20 years, due to the chemotherapy's suppression of her normal immune function. When she was only getting up to full speed in life, cancer took an inspirational and positive role model away from all of us.

Two words come to mind when we think of Melissa: love and luck. When you sit down to talk with Melissa's father, Steve, and you get to hear the stories of the people she met and the effect she continues to have on people's lives, you can clearly see how lucky he and the rest of the world feels to have had Melissa in their lives. It's easy to also see the injustice of her life ending so early. But we also heard something else in his stories: Melissa was very lucky, too. She had a family that loved her and supported her in every goal, and gave her opportunities to grow and develop fully into a young woman with poise and confidence. They appreciated her for who she was, and not what her diagnosis was. As a result, the rest of the world got to see Melissa as a person as well. And just like her family, the rest of the world loved Melissa. She is the epitome of the golden rule: you get what you give, and Melissa gave love.

So on July 18th, Melissa will be one of our Honored Teammates. We'll be thinking of her many accomplishments, the amazing life she lived, and the inspiration and legacy she left behind. And we'll remember the cruelty of leukemia, and why what we're doing -- and what you're supporting -- is so important.

Love is everything
Love is all around
Love is a potion
Love is passion
Love is devotion
Love is fusion
Love holds deeply inside
Love does not tear apart
Love is a potion
Love is passion
Love never fails
Love’s emotion

Love is everything
Love is all around
Love is not hopeless
Love is passion
Love will not stop
Love is an ocean


Click here to listen to "The Ring" and "Love is a Potion"

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