WEBSTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Sherryn Malm’s scrapbook contains anything but scraps, and tells us a lot about her.
“I’m old,” Malm, 79, said with a laugh.
It shows her love of travel and music, the latter of which she shared for years through her job as a Fairport music teacher.
It also shows her love of people.
“The first night I was at One Police Plaza,” Malm said.
As a volunteer with the Red Cross, she worked tirelessly at Ground Zero after 9/11.
“I would do it again,” Malm said. “The unity we had was incredible, it was the best ever. Nobody could describe it. Nobody could describe it.”
The experience stands as the most memorable one in her life, but also an experience she says is ending it. Asbestos, she says, is what caused the cancer.
“The chemo was not working,” Malm said. “I had two different kinds of chemo but it just didn’t work.”
That’s why Malm and the team at Baywinde Senior Living were recently talking about end-of-life issues.
“And then she started sharing with us things she wish she could do again, one of which was ride a roller coaster,” said Jennifer LaFountain, Baywinde’s executive director.
Friday, the entire entourage rolled into Six Flags Darien Lake and made a beeline for the Boomerang.
Malm, her oxygen tank and the Baywinde crew then all got on.
“Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!” Malm shouted afterwards.
Malm had been adamant everyone in her group join her because she wanted to share the moment – a small gesture that represented so much of her life.
“I just hope in my life there’s something — due to this and due to NYC and due to whatever — that I could give some small amount of love back to people so that they know that love does exist,” she said.
And it comes with ups and downs and if life really is a roller coaster, Sherryn Malm has had quite the ride.
