It's Something That We Do

Venus paint on silk by Carole Bonicelli from Art.Rage.Us Art and Writing by Women with Breast Cancer Book- proceeds going to The Breast Cancer Fund, can be ordered directly from The Breast Cancer Fund http://www.breastcancerfund.org

Love is certain, love is kind
Love is yours and love is mine
But it isnt something that we find
Its something that we do
Its holding tight, lettin go
Its flying high and laying low
Let your strongest feelings show
And your weakness, too
Its a little and a lot to ask
An endless and a welcome task
Love isnt something that we have
Its something that we do
We help to make each other all that we can be
Though we can find our strength and inspiration independently

I can see that picture in my head
Love isnt just those words we said
Its something that we do
Theres no request too big or small
We give ourselves, we give our all
Love isnt someplace that we fall
Its something that we do

"Something That We Do" by Clint Black

Things come in threes for me- does that happen to you?

I got an e-mail today requesting that I sign a petition to demand that government require medical insurers allow a 2 day hospital stay after mastectomy surgery. There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which
will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the"drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached. The link to do so (and you only need to give minimal info to sign). www.lifetimetv.com/health/breast_mastectomy_pledge.html
It'll only take a minute and - you can visit BOB later :).

But this was the second hit- the first was a close friend bravely going through her second lumpectomy and chemo treatments. Her second- and busily getting through it by taking care of EVERYONE else around her. I have no words here, only awe and a dedication to praying for her every night, and making chicken soup when she needs it.

The THIRD hit came from a total stranger. As a matter of fact, they do not get much stranger. I get all the requests for donations that come through our stores- usually its a pre-school auction or a benefit and I do what I can- we get asked a lot and too often I have to say no. But on this day there was no saying no- or saying ANYTHING. I had met the whirlwind- ever try and talk in a tornado? This was the experience of speaking with Antonieta D'Addio. If you think it is hard to pronounce- imagine it being pronounced and spelled with NO BREATH WHATSOEVER. Antonieta just started talking- she was collecting money for a fundraiser for a cancer hospital in Putnam, CT. There are details, lots of them- I missed them. All I heard was passion, drive and endless enthusiasm. And to the best of my reckoning she still had not breathed once. I promised a gift certificate, not knowing if I could even get it approved- there was no saying no- and when I hung up, I was smiling- really wide. You rarely meet with someone this driven. But wait, there's more.

It was not enough that Antonieta wanted the gift certificate, she was coming from Philly to get it. And somehow we wound up talking. The similarities were amazing- we both grew up on Staten Island. Her family Italian, mine Jewish (both of us agreed the difference there was negligible). She and I went to high school a few miles from each other and even candy striped at the same hospital. We discovered we are 6 months apart in age and both single. Neither of us are close with our families and tend to get along better with our date's parents than the men themselves. And we kept talking... and there were amazing similarities. Then I asked Antonieta (and the shortening of her name is equally unpronounceable... I tried) what she did for a living. She works in oncology research at a hospital in Philly, and lives in a little house in a rough neighborhood.


We talked a bit longer. And I saw her off. I thought about how you can get through a day knowing that at the end of it, lots of people still die. How could she spend every spare moment and dollar she had on something that slapped her in the face every day and said- you can't win. This eats every one of them alive. Children, young women, parents...everyone. But in doing her work- she cares for the sick, but never gives up hope. And I cannot imagine how healing and uplifting her presence must be to someone who is in the end stages of this awful disease and to their families. Later that night I heard the song referenced at the beginning of the post, and it became apparent that Love isn't something that we find or have or say, it's something- that special people, like Antonieta, and like you, who just signed that petition (didn't you?) Love is something that we do.

:) X