Last night I went to a fashion show for women, and their families, impacted by breast cancer. I had just gotten in on the red eye from a long trip out West, so walking into a cocktail party filled with 300 women was an assault to my nervous system. And ladies, where was the food? No guy would have an event from 6 to 9 pm and pass a few tiny cheese puffs and call that dinner.
I will admit I had a really bad attitude. I’ve grown tired of watching NFL players and coaches wear pink. Call my cynical but these guys are thinking about killing somebody, not breast cancer. I also am very friendly with a biotech executive who is at the forefront of research for a new treatment. He walks around with a pink pin while he does the math in his head about how much money he is going to make.
I digress. I was there because a good friend lost his wife to breast cancer. His daughter started this event to honor her mom. The funds go to helping the families of N stage breast cancer patients. A very noble and frankly tough cause.
I was also there because a dear, dear friend (pictured above and in the video below taken with my phone) had as serious breast cancer as you can get and beat long odds to come all the way back. She’s a Jersey girl. Those ladies don’t go down without a scorched earth battle. After several years of declining the offer to participate in the event, this was her first year on the catwalk (with her daughter). And because I so admire her personal strength, my wife Elena and I wanted to be there for her.
After an hour of awkward cocktail party, the show began. I have been to a lot of charity events that frankly suck because they are so boring no matter how good the cause. This was entirely different. Think Chippendales only with every single person in the place balling their eyes out. The crowd was screaming at the courage of the families on the runway strutting their stuff. It was a celebration of life, of what it is to have breast cancer, what it is to be a kid with a mom who has breast cancer, and what it is to survive. And what it is to honor those who we have lost.
The organizer of the show explained that her mom was an extremely private person. Her mom suffered for ten years without telling her kids, only her husband. The organizer found out her mom was sick when she went into a coma four days before she died. Her mom had wanted to preserve the innocence of her kids’ childhood. She didn’t want the disease to take that too.
“So it’s kind of ironic that to honor the memory of my mom, who was so very private, we are having this huge party. But selfishly it gives me the chance to think of her every single moment I am working on this,” she said. Then the music started blaring, the ladies and kids started walking, the women started screaming, and we all started crying.
It was a honor to be there, a token guy in a crowd of women doing something truly amazing.
About Tom Matlack
Good Article: Can’t wait to see the one you write up on the prostate cancer event that you will attend. OH WAIT, they pretty much don’t exist.
Aspire, really? There is no downside it being inspired by someone who came to within an inch of death and came back through guts and courage.
Aspire just FYI, here in Boston on November 15th there is a huge charity event called the “Goal Post Gala” put on by Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots at the Four Seasons to find a cure for Prostrate Cancer: http://www.urologyhealth.org/difference/GoalPostGala.cfm
Have to agree with Tom…no downside to learning from anyone that has faced adversity.
Thanks Dan.
I think what Aspire’s getting at was that breast cancer gets a massively disproportionate share of “awareness” time in the public eye. Compared to heart disease which kills more women than breast cancer. Compared to prostate cancer, which is more prevalent among men than breast cancer is among women. Plus there is very little public awareness/fundraising activity around lung and colorectal cancers, which are # 2 and 3 in terms of cancer prevalence (in males and females). Seriously, when was the last time you heard of a big event for lung cancer patients? Is there a massive ribbon campaign for colon cancer? Are NBA players wearing, I dunno, magenta for cervical cancer?
That said, it’s always great to hear about events that are fun and meaningful to participants and attendees. I think that’s half the point of these events – to help survivors/supporters/families come together and not be alone in their struggles. And I’d rather see money raised to go families affected by cancer than these “run for the cure” type events that are often run by for-profit companies with very little money actually going towards the research they claim to be supporting. Or all of the vomit-inducing pinkwashing of consumer products, which seems to get more and more pervasive every October.
(Disclaimer – I work in cancer survivorship research. Honestly, I don’t think cancer is curable, but we can do a lot better at prevention, humanizing the treatment process, improving survival outcomes and quality of life for people with all types of cancer.)
Maria I suppose that it’s fine to make the point that perhaps different kinds of cancer need attention too, but I really wasn’t attempting to address breast cancer or cancer in general or any other ideological issue with regard to gender or otherwise. I was simply reporting my experience at one amazing, uplifting event that I went to to honor one kick ass lady. That is all.
PS. I am with you on the Lance Armstrong crap. The thing that I loved about this event was that even though the dollars raised were small they went to help families facing the end of life and the whole point was to connect people and celebrate living in the face of grave challenge. The mixture of joy and pain was palpable. As was the courage.
Hey Tom…drop me an email if you get a moment…I have something to share you might be interested in (dhammond@americanhometownmedia.com)
I love your rambling, cranky essays…! Thank you for writing this…so true that sometimes we can only truly appreciate the joy of life and our family when faced with something so terrible and frightening…
I am sorry TOM for my posts attitude, MARIA said perfectly what I failed to say.