EVA MCGAULEY ON LIFE
Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Eva Mcgauley refuses to see the disease as an end – instead, it’s proven an inspiring new chapter for the Wellington-born teenager, who’s just celebrated her 18th birthday. She conceived Evaswish and has set about creating a world where she can “feel safe to leave my loved ones”. The website provides a platform for young people to become successful activists, and so far has raised more than $50,000 for HELP, which provides support for survivors of sexual abuse. She’s also been a key player in the creation of a government-backed online messaging service for people who have been sexually abused.
The greatest privilege in life is life itself.” I said that to a photojournalist when they asked me to look sad and not smile. When I asked why, they said, “Because it’s an article about your cancer.” I kept smiling and said I’m a person who smiles and the article wasn’t about me dying, it was about what I’m doing while living. They said, “You know what? You’re right.” We both ended up smiling.
I don’t smile through the pain, I smile in spite of it. I’ve always been a big smiler – it’s just who I am. It’s for this same reason that I choose to spend the time I have left working to empower youth and end sexual violence – it’s because it’s what I do. Giving up has never crossed my mind as an option. Getting cancer
didn’t make me want to give up on my dreams, it just made me want to achieve them even more.
But that isn’t to say it’s been an easy road. Adversity is hard to sum up given that it comes in many different forms, but I think it’s fair to say that any major hardship can really pierce the soul, dampen the fires of courage and obscure the ideas of what is wanted from life. Life is a tricky thing to comprehend and though humans have been trying to understand it for millennia, I don’t think anyone has come close. Life is life. It’s the thing that allows us to love, dream, laugh and cry. I don’t think we’ll ever fathom everything it has to offer, but we can still enjoy it and use it wisely. We can harness everything that has shaped our lives, everything that gives us that courage and passion to fight for what we believe is right.
That’s why I run Evaswish and how I stay motivated to do so. I take the harm and hurt I’ve seen sexual abuse have on loved ones and use those emotions to fight, to help all survivors and to end sexual violence. I take the pain and loneliness of cancer and use that to empower other youth to fight back and make a change in the area they’re passionate about. I use everything I’ve learned to try to make the world a safer place for the people I love.
What has cancer taught me about life? If someone tries to dim your smile, grin harder.