It starts with an email notification that someone has made a donation – wonderful! We can’t do our work without the support of our generous donors. If you are reading this you probably already know that 100% of your donation goes directly to the research that we hope will one day save our lives.
When I log in to the email account that receives our donation notifications, I never know what to expect. I’m often astounded by people’s generosity. More often, however, I uncover the story of another family tragedy. There will be a new name in the “honoree” section. I will google the name plus “obituary” and nothing appears – and I breathe a sigh of relief.
But, I don’t archive the email, not just yet. I’ve learned that the donations sometimes start before the obituary is published. So, I wait, the email trickles in, and a story emerges. The obituary eventually appears and I learn that another sister or brother has indeed succumbed to metastatic breast cancer, and another family is devastated by loss. I begin the process of making sure all the appropriate acknowledgements are made.
It is obvious from the donations how valued these people are, and I don’t mean the amount of money. An uncle donates and requests notification to the father. Then I will see a dozen donations requesting notification to the uncle. One honoree may have many donations from Georgia addresses, and many more from Pennsylvania – clearly a close family in spite of the distance. I start to see the relationships in the maiden names and the repeated family names, children named after their elders. Sometimes I can tell that a young woman has gone back to her home town to die in her childhood home.
Far too often the deceased is a young mother, or a woman so young she has not even had time to marry and start a family. One week METAvivor was named in four obituaries, and all four women were in their 30s. Sometimes a relative sends a check, and a letter. I have opened so many heartbreaking letters from mothers who have lost their daughters. One grieving mother wrote of her son-in-law, left to raise a special needs child just 2 years old.
But MBC doesn’t discriminate, we are of all ages. Losing a vital woman in her seventies is just as devastating to her family. And it happens every 15 minutes worldwide - there is no shortage of tragic stories.
I confess that it does sometimes get to me. I know exactly how the families feel – I have lost so many friends that I loved, women I would not have known had I not been diagnosed with MBC myself. I try to channel the grief into motivation, to keep myself opening the email and making the notifications. Each donation, no matter how small, gets us a bit closer to our goal – ending death from MBC. I hope I live to see it. Meanwhile, I will keep reading the email.
