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Radio Tokyo. and reading. Radio Topia. From PRX.

From PRX is Radio Topia, this is Radio Diaries.

I'm Joe Richmond.

Today we're revisiting one of our favorite stories from years ago with a new twist.

Over 20 years ago I met a teenager named Laura Rothenburg and gave her a tape recorder to document her life. She was 19 at the time, a college student

with a love of swimming and writing poetry. She also spent most of her life knowing that she was going

to die. Laura had cystic fibrosis, a genetic

disorder that affects the lungs. When she was born the life expectancy for a person

with CF was only 18 years.

Lar liked to say she went through her midlife crisis when she was a teenager.

For two years, Laura kept an audio diary of her attempts to live a normal life while battling CF. Her story aired on NPR in 2002,

Laura passed away one year later. I still think a lot about Laura. One of the things

she wanted was to be remembered, to leave something behind. It's why she wrote

so many poems, like this one. Out of a hundred you wouldn't pick me as sick and it isn't my brain that is ill.

I walk up the hill rocks on my chest and observe for the first time the fireflies

as they fill the purple sky with light.

...