I was driving when I got the call from Wes Wallace. Michelle Wallace - our Tiger Lady - had passed away.

Wes, along with his wife Kathie and daughter Michelle, had been volunteer members of the Grant County Fire Districts Nos. 10-11 at Royal City with my wife and me.

Wes joined the fire district in 2006, Kathie joined in 2008 and Michelle joined in 2009. Unknown to any of us at the time, when Michelle Wallace joined us as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), she was already a cancer survivor.

In March of 2005 her life had been turned upside-down with the initial diagnosis of Leukemia. She spent 12 weeks in the University of Washington Medical Center.

There Michelle underwent chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant with her father Wes as the donor. She thought she had won the war.

In early February, 2012 Wes shared with the fire district volunteers a phone call he got from his daughter. All she could say to her father, after what had been a routine follow-up visit to her doctor, was: "It's back."

Michelle was a fireball. She became like a family member to the fire department volunteers.

As a volunteer firefighter and EMT she never missed a call if she was available when the call came in. Those midnight and 3 a.m. calls usually resulted in her voice being the first on the radio to announce that she was on the way.

Michelle and Wes became a regular team on the scene of medical calls and motor vehicle accidents. She was vibrant and out-going. She knew what she was doing and what she needed and where it was on the ambulance.

At training and other fire district functions, Michelle added a positive spark to whatever was going on. She could take a good teasing but wasn't bashful about swatting those of us who pushed her too far.

In the course of putting together the fund-raiser when she had her relapse in 2012, a number of community members expressed their appreciation for her help when they or a loved one needed the ambulance. If a situation was life-threatening, Michelle was all business and not bashful about barking orders as needed.

The other type of ambulance call requires compassion and patience. At these calls Michelle also excelled. Someone elderly and confused, someone's child, terrified of being taken from its mother's arms, or someone abused and assaulted by a family member, and she did very well at holding a victim's hand and getting them to believe that they would be okay.

She was there to help. She was there for someone else.

The relapse of 2012 brought with it some dark days. One person started calling her Tiger Lady as a way to keep her fighting. "Tiger Lady" matched her personality.

Facebook posts followed:

"Time to unsheathe those claws and tear this thing up, Tiger Lady."

"Tiger Lady, the light at the end of your tunnel is not just another lost doctor with a flashlight."

Tiger Lady made it back. Once more she took on the world and went back to college, this time on the west side of the state so she was closer to the doctors. She proceeded with life as she always had, intending on doing more tomorrow than yesterday. Then on September 11 of this year, it came back.

The treatment was massive rounds of chemo. It weakened her so that her body could not fight off another infection-pneumonia. Wes called me Sunday afternoon, on Sept. 29, 2013.

"Tiger Lady is in a better place," he said.

Wes and I agreed that one thing that makes life fair is that none of us knows how long we have to live on this earth. None of us knows how long we have to say "I love you" to friends and family, nor how long we have to say "Please forgive me" to those around us.

Nor do we know how long we have to make a difference in the lives of others. In her 29 years on this earth, Michelle Wallace made a difference.

Tiger Lady, we miss you.