Preethi Sridharan

Preethi Sridharan-Kositz was born in Bangalore, India, and was able to bless so much of the rest of the world with her exuberant, caring, and forceful personality. From her earliest years growing up with her parents, Shanthi and Sridharan, and her brother, Nithin, she was a force of nature and touched many lives. She was precocious, funny, kind, intelligent, hard-working, and ready to take on the world after graduating from college. Her biggest complaint about having cancer at only nineteen years old was that people coddled her too much.
Having survived cancer once, she went out to see the world, pursuing her masters degree in Canberra at the Australian National University. She worked hard and played harder, in traditional Australian fashion, finding wonderful friends and found family. Cancer interrupted her again, and against all the wishes of her family she was treated in Australia, almost completely without support, because she preferred that independence. And she did great, beating it one more time.
Preethi met Bryce Kositz there in Australia, having been introduced to each other at a game of Dungeons and Dragons. She brought all of herself to her characters, acting out headstrong, romantic, chaotic, and nurturing instincts in these fantasies. She found a job she loved at a non-profit providing living assistance to people with severe disabilities and completely revitalized the organization. Preethi and Bryce were married on May 3, 2019, on the beach.
She came to the US, following her husband, in 2020. Preethi immediately set about building community, bringing her family and her husband's together, creating new Dungeons and Dragons groups, and making a difference in every job she held. She loved having a big kitchen to learn and experiment with cooking new foods, but what she loved most about cooking was feeding everyone she cared about.
Originally diagnosed in late 2020, Preethi fought Rhabdomyosarcoma for 27 months, three surgeries, two months of radiation, and more chemotherapy than anybody could handle. She passed on March 3, 2023, surrounded by friends and family, on her own terms, having fought all she could and knowing her loved ones would be taken care of. Don't be sorry for her, she is at rest; be sorry for everyone she touched who did not have, could never have had, enough time with her.