Redmond’s Stephanie Chao was one month away from her 16th birthday when she died in March 2007. She’d been diagnosed in July 2005, with a rare form of soft tissue cancer called synovial sarcoma.

It usually strikes teens and young adults and is hard to detect because its symptoms mimic muscle strains or sports injuries. Because Stephanie participated in track and gymnastics, her cancer wasn’t discovered until she was in Stage 4, the most serious stage of cancer.

Yet even as she was undergoing chemotherapy, this sweet almost-16-year-old still thought about others in need, such as going Trick-or-Treating for UNICEF and serving as a team captain for the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life.

Her family and friends will be back at the 2008 Redmond/Kirkland Relay for Life, June 7-8 at Redmond High School, because Stephanie would have wanted to be there, her mom Kathy Kahn told the Redmond Reporter.

“Stephanie got us started with the Relay three or four years ago. We didn’t really know what it was, but we continued it after she passed away,” said Kahn.

In 2006, Stephanie was the top youth fundraiser for the event, raising almost $24,000 for cancer research. And in 2007, she and her team were the top fundraisers overall, collecting almost $44,000 for the cause.

“Besides fundraising, we’ve been inviting people to come and check out the entertainment and other activities,” said Kahn. “We’re encouraging survivors to come, to give them a special t-shirt and breakfast. … We want to celebrate the ones who succeeded, the memories of the ones we’ve lost and create advocacy and awareness. The motto of the event is ‘Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back.’”

Everyone knows someone who has fought or lost a battle with cancer, she acknowledged. “But you don’t know (the reality) until it’s intensely upon you. … People think cancer research is done — it’s not.”

It goes without saying that the past year has been incredibly challenging for the loving family Stephanie left behind. “It’s helped me a lot to write down all the things I wanted to say to her if I had had more time,” said Kahn.

But Kahn finds some comfort in the fact that Stephanie remained so upbeat, even when she was very ill. She’d been in the Quest program at Einstein Elementary, took the PSAT at Redmond Junior High School and was already looking forward to college.

“We’re still getting college mail,” said her mom. “She was an excellent writer and we watched so much TV during her treatment, she wanted to be a screenwriter.”

Among the highlights of Stephanie’s last days was winning a Make-A-Wish Foundation trip to a filming of TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Actor Patrick Dempsey gave her a surgical cap festooned with pictures of ferry boats — as all “Grey’s” fans know, his character Derek Shepherd, also known as Dr. McDreamy, is a sucker for ferries.

“They also gave a her a Seattle Grace I.D.,” referring to the fictional hospital where the action takes place, said Kahn.

And a cousin of Stephanie’s dad arranged for a family trip to Hawaii, where Stephanie swam with dolphins.

Focusing on those good times is important, said Kahn, and she wants to tell people who’ve never been to the Relay for Life that “it is a fun day … although it is a lot more meaningful to us, who say ‘what if’ they had found something (to cure cancer) the year before.”

To learn more about the Relay team in memory of Stephanie Chao, visit www.stephaniechao.net.

Key events at the Redmond/Kirkland Relay include the Saturday, June 7 survivors’ breakfast at 10 a.m., the opening ceremony at noon and the 10 p.m. luminaria ceremony. For more information, visit www.redmondkirklandrelay.com or contact Erin Becker, event chair at (425) 503-7003 or elbecker@gmail.com.

Redmond High School is located at 17272 NE 104th St.