THIS IS REAL LOVE...

My dear friends, this is what a lovely, talented and beautiful person, who is a true man and gentleman, singer Steve Perry, wrote about the love of his life and his own experience of fighting against cancer, and he really knows about REAL LOVE...

June 6, 2013

As I said in my last birthday message January 2013, "There's so much more I'd like to share with you but that will have to come at another time"........

Well, I guess the time is now!.......In May of 2011, I was with Patty Jenkins in an editing room as she was putting the final editing touches on what was to be the closing segment of a Lifetime Channel breast cancer special called "Five." As the opening scenes camera panned across an outside hospital patio, a narrator's voice commented on their lives and their types of cancer. The camera came across this girl sitting there laughing….. I saw her smile.

When the scene was over I said to Patty, "Can you roll to the top of that opening scene for me?" Patty asked, "Is something wrong?" I said, "No. I want to see something."
As the camera again crossed Kellie's smile I asked her to freeze right there.……. I asked Patty who that was. She said, "That's Kellie Nash, a PHD Psychologist who was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a double mastectomy and she's doing a cameo appearance."

I asked if Patty had her email, She said, "Yes" but looked at me strange because she knows I don't do that. I asked if she would send Kellie an email that your friend Steve would love to take her to coffee or lunch sometime.

Patty agreed to do so but said, "Before I do that I think there's something I should tell you first. After a 3 year battle she was in remission for 8 months then it came back in her lungs and bones and now she's Stage 4 fighting for her life."

I was frozen……. I didn't know what to do…….. I had lost my mom, dad, grandparents that raised me and I was an only child so my first thought was to maybe not send the email; then my heart said, Maybe we could be friends or maybe she could be my shrink. So I said, "Please send it."

Well Kellie returned an email to me via Patty and we talked on the phone for the first time 2 years ago this May. It was so great to hear her voice. It felt like I knew her all along. She said that her girlfriends had bought her a ticket to Mexico for her birthday and when she got back we'd grab a bite. I was soooo excited..... I was a little boy who finally found his girl. I waited and 2 weeks later we went to our first dinner ....... Well we started at 6pm and the next thing I know she said "Oh My God! What time is it?" I said, "11:30."
She said, "I have patients starting at 8 tomorrow" ....... So we left. 

I never felt like this before....... I had finally found her. She's real and she's right in front of me.

We started seeing each other and Yes, we both knew that we were meant to be together. My life was forever changed in ways I will explain at another time but it was all because of my Kellie.

She continued chemo from May into December when headaches started and we discovered the cancer had gone to her brain. She started brain radiation and the chemo continued also. I've never seen courage like this before. One night as we were talking she told me she just couldn't do it anymore and would I be angry If she stopped everything. I was scared for what could happen but I told her that never, to my very last breath would I ever be angry with her and that I loved her and that her choices were torture at best. She stopped everything. 

January and February were rough on her then one day she said she wanted to try one last treatment that was not chemo but it was in New York. I said, "Let's move to New York"....... so we lived there for 9 months and the drug kept her alive with a quality of life. We had the most Magical summer of our lives together. She was doing really well till August. She said, "Something's wrong." We later found that her cancer was returning like wild fire. Kellie tried chemo in New York for 2 months but it was useless. We came back to California in November and I lost my precious Kellie December 14th 2012.

She was so strong, so courageous and we really loved each other so very much.
I've been trying to grieve and not run from this loss so for the last 5 months that's what I've been doing along with recalling everything being in Love with Kellie taught me. 

She helped me in so many ways.
I Love and miss her terribly. 

Three weeks ago a routine mole was taken off my face and the lab report came back Melanoma skin cancer. I've had two surgeries in two weeks to remove all the cancer cells and I've been told they think they got it all and no other treatments are required. 

On Sunday I was a bit depressed because Kellie's birthday was coming up so I went for a drive and ran into Martha Quinn at a street fair. It was so great to see her and in a few short moments I told her most of this story. She asked if I'd take a picture with her and I said, "If you don't mind my face scar." She said, "Not at all."  I joked about me and Pirates of the Caribbean and we both laughed.

It was so great seeing Martha........ I was a bit emotionally lost that day and seeing Martha got me grounded again. Thanks Martha!!

Well Fans.......... there's so much more to this story than you know and soon you will know more about it.

Though Kellie and I were only together for 1 and 1/2 years, it was a lifetime of love packed into every moment.

God bless my precious Kellie.
I loved you before I met you-
I love you now-
and I always will! 

Love,
Steve