Turning Grief To Action

There are people who will tell us how to grieve. They know about the ‘stages of grief’ as laid out by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. They will suggest that we are not grieving ‘right’. Or they will say ‘you have not dealt with your grief yet’. Or you ‘have not accepted the loss’ yet. Or ‘you have not gone through that stage yet.’ They can talk about it as if we had not properly gathered our stuff for our tax return.

But it is not as easy as that. Those who are indeed grieving do not pass judgment on procedure, do not suggest a right or a wrong way. They are struggling to get through the first day, the first week, the first holiday, the first year and so on, and so on. Sometimes they have no one to talk to, because they do not want to impose their sorrow on others. Today though, they can actually find a place to share their grief with others who hurt like they do. The Internet which dishes out so much bad stuff, also is a ‘God sent’ for many. There, it is possible to pour out your sorrow and meet people who understand what you are going through, because they are going through the same thing. If you have never written a line about your emotions you can now in anonymity bare your soul and talk about your deepest sorrow, your regrets, your misery, your sleepless nights, all the things you do not want to talk to anybody about, because you feel they do not really want to listen to you. On the Internet you can find mothers and fathers and spouses and children who have lost a loved one and feel the need to reach out to somebody, and they discover they will be greeted by others who know what they are going through and who will take the time to listen and answer and really help. While people die from many different causes and accidents, many of these people talk about the horror of cancer, the horror of watching a loved one suffer and die.

In ‘Days of Goodbyes’ I express my sorrow by writing about Maria, because I feel I honor her by telling about her struggle with breast cancer and by telling the world what a horrible disease it is. There really is no way to describe adequately what some cancer victims go through. What I saw was sheer torture, not only in Maria’s case, but in some of the other women I became acquainted with.

I am happy and grateful in my daily life. I was given a gift when Maria was born and she was in my life for more than 40 years. Joy and sorrow go together and the joy and pride she gave me made my sorrow deep and unending, because I shall always miss her. But I can honor her life by doing something in her name and spirit. That is why ‘Days of Goodbyes’ has been published and is being sold to raise money for The Silent Spring Institute on April 3. For there is something very wrong in a society when mankind invents things that poison our environment, our food, our cosmetics, our toys, our lives.

Silent Spring Institute is a model alliance of scientists, physicians, and activists dedicated to identifying – and changing – links between the environment and women’s health, especially breast cancer.

This institute began with activists recruiting scientists. Alarmed by reports of elevated rates of breast cancer in nine of fifteen towns on Cape Cod, members decided to create a laboratory of their own to investigate the causes. They founded Silent Spring Institute to study the links between the environment and women’s health, beginning with breast cancer. Their background was social activism, not science – and that gave them an advantage. They did not want to fund scientists who would go away and then come back with a report ten years later. They wanted the community – especially women with breast cancer – to participate in the process. Now there is a multidisciplinary scientific staff that collaborates with researchers at five universities and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As an independent scientific institute, Silent Spring has avoided the turf wars of academic institutions. Ellen Parker, chair of directors, calls breast cancer a political disease. The precautionary principle states that evidence of harm, rather than definitive proof of harm, should prompt policy action – and that the burden of proof should lie with manufacturers to demonstrate that chemicals are safe, rather than with the public to show that they cause harm. “Prevention has never been popular research”, says Cathie Ragovin, a founding board member, “because science is driven in large part by profit motives – and there’s no profit in prevention. And yet we’re all living in a soup of carcinogens. We’re breathing them, eating them, drinking them, even showering in them.”

Many of the women who started grassroots breast cancer organizations have died of the disease. Susan Bailis said before her own death in 2000: “There is nothing in the research that can change my situation, with metastatic breast cancer, but there is the hope that the research that Silent Spring is doing can make a difference for my daughter, her daughter, and the thousands of daughters that come after her.”

We have lost 4000 soldiers in our five year war. We have lost 200.000 women to breast cancer in the same period. In 1940 a woman’s lifetime risk of getting breast cancer was 1 in 22. Today it is 1 in 7. If you are a woman you have every reason to be afraid. It is a horrible and painful way to die.

Today there are three women in my little fitness group who have lost a daughter to breast cancer. My closest neighbor has, too. 6 children were made motherless. Husbands were devastated. Parents would have given their lives to save their daughters. It happens everywhere, all the time. It happens to 40.000 women every year.

That is why I tell Maria’s story in ‘Days of Goodbyes’. It takes passion and it takes money to fight cancer. These women die one at a time. And they are not mentioned in the media and honored with names and pictures. They are forgotten by the media like the snowflakes of yesteryear. Their families and friends are devastated. The loss of talent is staggering. So many women taken away while they are young and full of knowledge and love and energy.

Silent Spring Institute is working to change this. If you want to know more about them their website is www.silentspring.org. ‘Days of Goodbyes,’ will be sold on Amazon.com on April 3rd to help raise funds for the institute.

IT’s HERE!

The Book that will change people from all walks of life. It will help grieving people see beyond their grief. It will share with you the pain of losing a loved one. It is the book that all politicians must read, so they will work for prevention of cancer. The book that the big industrial corporations should have in their CEOs offices that they may always be reminded of the environment in order to keep it clean. The book that all medical students should have in order to intimately know the story of a patient. The book that will bring tears to your eyes and yet let you live with the hope of one day seeing your beloved child again.

This book is being promoted by passionate people. You can buy the book any time, but it is only on April 3rd that you’ll get some very special bonus gifts when you order it. You will hear the author read ‘The Story of a Mother’ by Hans Christian Andersen, a twenty minute download. And you will receive a copy of the illustration to it by the beloved Danish artist Wilhelm Pedersen.

We are all touched by their stories, the young people who die. They die in wars, in accidents, from drugs, from shootings, from diseases, - and we are left behind, asking what we could have done to prevent their deaths. How could we have saved them? Where do we fail? “Days of Goodbyes” is the story of just one of approx. 40.000 women who die every year from breast cancer. In 1940 1 in 22 women would get breast cancer. Today it is 1 in 7. If you are a woman you have every reason to be afraid. It is a horrible and painful way to die.

When you buy “Days of Goodbyes” on April 3rd, every penny will go to SILENT SPRING INSTITUTE, a model alliance of scientists, physicians, and activists dedicated to identifying – and changing – links between the environment and women’s health, especially breast cancer.

“Days of Goodbyes” is the story of a young woman’s struggle for life. It is beautiful and deeply disturbing. It compels us to ask for the reasons breast cancer has spread like a wildfire during the last 50 years and what our politicians and scientists can and will do to stop it. There are cancer causing products allowed in our communities. We need only go into a hardware store and we may see signs telling us so. They may be in cosmetics, and we may not even know it. Most of us do not know when we use products that may cause cancer. But our young women die, one at a time, and they are forgotten by the media like the snowflakes of yesteryear. About 40.000 women die yearly from this disease. We have lost approx. 4000 soldiers during our five year war abroad. We have lost approx. 200.000 women to breast cancer in the same period. It is a terrorist in our midst. The loss of talent is staggering, the grief never ending. Children lose mothers, husbands lose wives, parents lose daughters, and siblings lose one of their own. What will our politicians do about it? Will they make it a priority to rid our environment of cancer causing products? And the media, which has so much power, will the media keep hammering after the politicians to do something? There are people protesting the war in Iraq. When will the same people protest against the breast cancer epidemic? We are bombarded at prime time television by ads from the pharmaceutical companies, telling men how to have more and better sex using Viagra and other potency products, what to use against prostate and urinary tract problems, etc. etc.. When do we see them come up with a solution to breast cancer? What is being offered besides radiation and chemotherapy when the women are already sick?

“When I lost the child I love, a part of me died, too. Even as the years go by, it seems impossible that she can be dead. She must be there in the next room or perhaps traveling abroad for a while. She cannot have died. Every time reality hits me it seems like my world stops. She cannot have died. It is just too awful to grasp.”

Buy “Days of Goodbyes” and let it comfort you a little. Your loved one will always be with you. You can talk to her in your heart. The memories can bring smiles to your face and her smile from a photograph can bring tears to your eyes. Part of her is still here, is still with us. Let them come back, the ones who died, and welcome them in their invisibility, welcome them as if they sat across from you, healthy and happy. That is the way they want to be remembered. You can learn to smile and feel the love you shared. They are never far away if you call them into your presence.

“Days of Goodbyes” tells us how Maria and her family coped with her five year fight to stay alive when Breast Cancer invaded her body.

“Don’t cry, Mom,” she said, “I will always be with you, we are family!” She helps me bear the unbearable loss even when she is not here.

Do you remember the story from the New Testament where Jesus tells about a widow who gives 2 (two) little coins to the temple? There are many others who give one tenth of what they earn, Big Sums! Yet Jesus says that this little widow gave the most – namely her two little coins! All she had!

That is why I know we all have something to give, however little, towards finding the causes of cancer so they can be eliminated from our environment and so we can save the lives of those we love and cherish and depend on and work with, perhaps our own lives.

Buy “Days of Goodbyes” on April 3rd on Amazon.com BECAUSE...every penny that comes in on April 3rd will go to SILENT SPRING INSTITUTE, a model alliance of scientists, physicians, and activists dedicated to identifying – and changing – links between the environment and women’s health, especially breast cancer. The organization is a leader in breast cancer and environmental studies and is helping to reshape breast cancer research to include an expanded focus on PREVENTION. When you buy “Days of Goodbyes” on April 3rd you will receive a number of bonus gifts and the opportunity to talk with the author at a tele-seminar on April 24. You may buy “Days of Goodbyes” any day, but you have to buy on April 3rd to receive the bonus gifts and the opportunity to meet the author at a tele-seminar on April 24.