Editor’s note: Amara Strande spent her final months lobbying for a state law that restricts the non-essential use of “forever chemicals,” also known as PFAS, in a large swath of products. The then-20-year-old woman from Woodbury believed the chemicals led to her developing cancer. Legislators passed Amara’s Law, named in her honor, a week after her death in 2023, and it is now state law.

In the following essay, her father, Michael Strande, who serves as the director of liturgy at St. Olaf in Minneapolis, describes the consolation his daughter found in Christ and the impact of her life on all Minnesotans, who could be protected from toxins due in part to her testimony on the legislation.

In the autumn of her fifteenth year, Amara Strande was diagnosed with a rare cancer, fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, an awful disease that begins in the liver. This disease takes the lives of mainly teens and young adults within three years of diagnosis. Over the next six years Amara would undergo over 20 different surgeries and procedures, mainly to remove tumors that had spread into her abdomen and lungs. Fibrolamellar is so rare few oncologists have seen it. There is no cure except surgical removal if it is found early enough. There is no set plan to attack it. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments are minimally effective.

Amara did not want to be known as the girl with cancer. She wanted to be known for the gifts and talents she enjoyed. She was an athlete, an actress, a singer, a composer, a musician and an artist. She was well known in her parish of Guardian Angels in Oakdale. She was a cantor, a lector and an altar server. She loved the openness and welcome structure and atmosphere of the church, where she would often play the piano. She recognized how the sanctuary was a place for her to express her artistry, whether it be as a liturgical minister or a performer in the annual variety show.

As one would expect, being diagnosed with a deadly disease at such a young age challenged her relationship with God. Amara understood lament in the true sense of the word. She was deeply engaged with God. However, her disappointment came from how God remained hidden, which led her to feel loss, loneliness and abandonment. She wrote once:

“The loneliness, isolation, and feelings of abandonment that comes (stet) with a faith crisis are sometimes unbearable. I was taught that God would always be there for me. If that was the case, then WHERE ARE YOU GOD?”

In anger and frustration, she would demand a response to her illness, to her pain and suffering. She dared to confront God, “Whether God inflicts pain on purpose, looks away, or stands idly is unacceptable. God must be held accountable. But one question remains, how does one punish God?”

As a religious educator I taught Amara the ancient Greek word “satan.” The word satan means “a person who prevents you from doing what you feel you must do.” Jesus calls Peter a satan when he wanted to prevent Jesus from traveling to Jerusalem. Jesus was not calling Peter the devil or evil. He was pointing out that Peter cannot be in his way — “get behind me.” Amara wondered if this applied to God. She wanted to do so much in her young life. She felt that God was getting in her way of doing what she felt she must do.

Because she felt she was not getting any response from an invisible God she turned to Christ.

Sometimes before a surgery, a doctor or a nurse would say to Amara, “Go to your happy place.” Then they would ask her what that was. She would tell them that her happy place was at the foot of the Mount of Olives, in the Garden of Gethsemane, outside the Old City of Jerusalem. When asked why that was her happy place she would say, “It was there when all of the stuff about Jesus came together and it made sense.”

Amara spent many years in the Garden. Struggling with God so that at times, like Christ, she felt abandoned.

Amara would go out of her way to meet and know other kids with cancer. She not only met them, she got their contact information so she could continue the relationship. She would give them ideas to help them deal with cancer.

I asked her once, “Why do you seek out kids with cancer knowing they may die some day and it will hurt?” She said, “Dad, I want them to know that they are not alone.”

That is what she did. She understood the pain, loneliness, and struggles of having cancer. She wanted no one who suffered to feel alone. This was exactly what Christ did. In my 40-plus years working in the Church I have never met anyone more Christ-like than Amara.

It was because of that solidarity with Christ that Amara began her great work of advocacy.

Amara didn’t want people to pity her, she wanted people to hear her, as she said, “not just for my sake but for the sake of my community.”

She died two days shy of her 21st birthday, a week before Amara’s Law was passed in the Minnesota House and Senate. Amara took her pain, suffering and deep compassion and used it to focus her attention to make life better for us all.

Strande has been working in the Church for over 40 years. He has a Master of Divinity degree from The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.

AMARA’S MUSIC

A song Amara Strande wrote titled “I Am the Strange” captures her spiritual struggle and expresses her connection to Christ. Listen to her music by searching for her name through Spotify, Apple, YouTube and more.