Just weeks into this new year, I find myself terribly worried about a new friend. We have only known each other a few months, yet the brave battle against cancer I’ve been watching her wage is something I feel right in the pit of my gut.

I first walked into Shari’s pilates class in the early fall. I told her I was looking to get serious about working out after a lapse and some renewed physical pain. At that moment, I had no idea that’s she’d been diagnosed with Stage 3 Ovarian 18 months ago.

As we began working, the easiest of connections formed between us. We didn’t really need to ask one another whether we were Jewish. There was that unmistakable familiarity: Jokes. Expressions. Values.

Shari worked me hard right from the start, while at the same time being so understanding of the pain that was testing my limits. She made me feel enthused in a whole new way about making strides to strengthen my condition.

Shari and I would talk about politics, movies, and our families. We shared a keen interest in what was going on in the world around us, and she made me promise to send her any new articles I’d written about politics. I complied.

It didn’t take long for Shari to tell me about her cancer diagnosis and what she’d been through over the last 18 months. Her scans had been good of late, but the weekly chemotherapy was taking a terrible toll. I marveled that she still had the energy to teach classes and run her business. Always positive, Shari shrugged it off. Her family needed the income. And besides, it made her feel good to channel her time into helping people. She did. And never complained once.

Over the holidays, I made a point of telling Shari not only of my admiration for her, but also how much it meant that she genuinely cared about pushing me to get better myself. I told her that it made a difference. A big one. She loved hearing it.

Just after New Year’s, Shari had to cancel our Monday session. She told me that she had to have fluid drained from her abdomen. Naturally, all I cared about was her health, and she expected that the procedure would alleviate some of the bloating and pain she’d been experiencing.

After several unanswered texts over the weekend where I asked how she was feeling, I became extremely nervous. And then the awful news landed on my screen. Two messages, from her husband Mickey:

“Unfortunately, my bright, beautiful star is not doing well. The disease has suddenly progressed at lightning speed and Shari may have as little as only a couple of weeks to share her beautiful soul with. Her chemo doctor who is considered in the top one percent in the country and we feel he has done everything he could possibly do, said to me tonight, ‘The best thing you could do is to tell her it’s okay to let go’… This all went south in two weeks. I’m telling you this, which is more than other clients or even her instructor knows, because I know Shari really liked you on multiple levels.”

I froze. When I unfroze, I asked Mickey if I could visit. Half an hour later, I was sitting in Shari’s hospital room. My teacher didn’t look so bad. I told her to get up, get dressed and let’s go workout! I could still see the strong, professionally trained New York dancer right in front of me. But I knew better. I’d been in this room before.

I held my friend’s hand. We talked. We joked. Then Shari explained the brutal decision she was confronting: How much treatment to continue to undergo, versus how much quality time she might still have to enjoy with her family. As is so often the case with the demon cancer, there were no good answers.

And then Shari asked me the real question. What did I think happens-“after?” She had been thinking about it, and as a no-B.S. New Yorker, she didn’t want to hear any B.S. answer. I shared my thoughts, the specifics of which will stay in that room. But I added that humility prevented me from any sense of certainty-and that this is what makes the answer truly unknowable. She agreed with all of it.

More importantly, I think, was the last thing I told her before leaving. I shared with Shari my belief that when any of us physically leave this world, it’s the impact we’ve had on others that lives on-without question. And that speaking for myself, in just three short months, I am a better person for our friendship.

Shari is still fighting. Every day. And I am worried. Every day. But in a strange way, I am grateful for this worry. For I am grateful for having met this new and dear friend. The strangers we meet every day have an incredible power to touch our lives, when we let them. Shari has touched mine. Nothing can change that fact.

Michael Golden is the author of “Unlock Congress: Reform the Rules -Restore the System” and cofounder of the One Million Degrees scholarship program 
in Chicago.

Names have been changed to protect privacy.