Coffee Talk: A tale of two heroines

Both of these woman have battled cancer. Jean won; Rose and her will to live battled against cancer for four long years of ups and downs before finally losing the battle in August of 1999.

By: Stacey Gorski
   Jean is a mother of two grown boys, a wife of more than 25 years and a daughter to an aging couple. She spends eight hours a day in a public school acting as a mother to her first-grade students.
   She expends other energy and "free" time thinking about her own two sons, sending them baked goods, refinishing furniture for them or sending them other gifts for holidays — even Halloween — though they are both over 20 years old. One is a senior in college, and the other is a teacher.
   Amidst her busy days, she comes home and cooks for her husband who works as an accountant. In the past year, she has rekindled an interest in playing golf, she has been for bike rides with her younger son, and she likes making weekend trips to craft shops and other places.
   Similarly, Rose is the mother of two children in their 20s. Her potato salad was widely regarded, and she was constantly trying to get me to eat more of just about any kind of food whenever I visited her house.
   She worked ceaselessly for her local church, supported her husband’s office by providing administrative assistance and raised two great kids — a teacher and a psychological researcher who just finished her second marathon this weekend.
   Both of these woman have battled cancer. Jean won; Rose and her will to live battled against cancer for four long years of ups and downs before finally losing the battle in August of 1999.
   For Jean, the hardest part was the recovery when she felt well enough to leave the house. In the words of her oldest son, she worried people would think she was shirking her work responsibilities if she was out shopping, but not yet working back at school.
   As it was, she was diagnosed with cancer in October, and she went through several months of radiation and chemo treatments. She was back in school around Christmas time — faithfully teaching first-graders to read despite her continuing treatments.
   For Rose, the hardest part was having to put her family through the difficulties of seeing her so ill. She was constantly concerned with how her husband and her children were doing despite her own allergic reactions to chemo. She worried, and rightfully so, about how her husband of over 20 years would manage life without her.
   To this day, her funeral was one of the most beautiful I ever attended. People came from far and wide to pay tribute to her and support her family. A large group of her children’s friends spoke about how she touched their lives, and four priests insisted on having a part in the ceremony because she had been such a strong influence on them as she kept their office in order and their hearts in the right place.
   I remember feeling drained of energy for days after the event, but I constantly used her mental and physical toughness as inspiration to get through my first days in the classroom.
   This weekend, I will not look to either of them for strength. Instead, I will look to my own strength and run the Race for the Cure in their honor. In doing so, I, with a large contingency of other runners, will raise money for breast cancer research.
   The event is Sunday at Bristol-Myers Squibb on Route 206 in Lawrence. The women’s race is at 10 a.m., but I will be there earlier to watch Jean’s son in the men’s race at 8:45 a.m.
   The grounds of the Bristol-Myers Squibb will be crawling with a crowd of people who have the same inspirations for running and aspirations of finding a cure.
   There will be men with survivor T-shirts, as they, too, can be afflicted with breast cancer. There will be hundreds of woman in pink survivor T-shirts and caps, signifying that they are running after having won a much bigger race against the disease.
   There will be women in the 5K walk and the one-mile Health walk at 11:15 a.m. that will be walking as they recover from treatments. There are others who will walk because they enjoy it, and they want to contribute to the efforts that may save them from the struggle against the disease.
   There will be children in the fun run at 12:30 p.m. They, too, will have T-shirts, and some will be in memory of their moms and grandmothers and others will wear shirts in honor of their relatives who did survive.
   The event is inspiring. The amounts of money raised this weekend will be staggering. Even if you don’t plan to run or walk, come watch and cheer on people who are supporting families like Rose’s and Jean’s as they face cancer and the struggle to beat it.