Recently we all suffered a horrible loss. Our friend and fellow Musa, Megan Rand, passed after being diagnosed with cancer in June of 2021. Megan was 39 years old. She was a physician assistant and former paramedic and her passing has left us once again at a loss for why special, talented, kind and loving people are leaving us all behind.
This one really hurts. You cannot find a more caring and compassionate person than Megan. Her talents were enormous. What I remember most is her ‘getting into it’ mode. You wanted her on your team and in your unit. Megan got things done and did so with joy, and always with an eye for the welfare of others around her.
You can read Megan’s obituary here. It provides a good overview of Megan’s achievements, which were a lot! We want to just share a bit more here, talking about her time and contribution to Musa Masala.
So often when you do group treks or climbs, many of the people you meet tend to drift away as they get back to their everyday lives. Megan and Eric stayed in touch with us and Megan was always promoting our projects and thinking of ways to help Musa Masala and the hospital.
Megan and Eric came to the Masters of Wilderness Medicine Conference for the Wilderness Medical Society in Stowe, Vermont in the fall of 2019. She helped at our Musa table and we had such a good time. We made plans for future climbs and fundraisers. Then COVID came.
When we lost our friends Gary McLean and then Paul Auerbach in June of 2021, all of us at Musa Masala were reeling; it was a terrible time. This was when Megan got her diagnosis. She never told me, even though we were texting, calling and emailing. Eric told me she did not want to upset us, given all we were going through. I don’t think I could ever be so brave, thoughtful and selfless. So we never talked past last summer, and texts were not returned.
When someone is too important to be taken away, you get angry. You can’t understand why the caring, intelligent and driven people go and we are left with loud, babbling man-childs who cause nothing but pain and destruction, hate and division.
That mystery will never be solved, so we continue to cherish our friends and family who support us and extend a helping hand to others, even when at a loss to themselves.
There were some wonderful things said on Megan’s Facebook page, which we invite you to visit here.
We are going back to the hospital now to paint and honor our friends. We will remember Megan from her time there. We will say thanks and be grateful for the passions of our friends who made this place possible. Blessed with such a wonderful friend as Megan, we will do our best to make this hospital part of a a living monument to her.
