thank you good afternoon I’m here today
because I believe that everyone has a
story and I’d like to share a small
portion of my story with you 17 years
ago at the age of 31 I was diagnosed
with breast cancer and well at the time
that seems like a scary diagnosis we
weren’t entirely surprised 12 years
prior to that my mom had been diagnosed
with breast cancer
a scary part at that time for my husband
and I when we sat in the doctor’s office
was actually looking at the doctor and
the urgency in her voice and actually
the tears in her eyes she said that
surgery had to occur as soon as possible
and that treatment would follow the time
between the diagnosis and my actual
surgery was four days in those four days
time seemed to pass very slowly it’s
kind of a blur when I think back to that
time but there’s one thing that was
really clear during that time and our
girls were really little we had a three
month old little girl we had a 2 year
old little girl I can remember strangely
enough going to the grocery store and
passing by complete strangers and
thinking they have no idea which has
happened to me yesterday and I looked at
them and I wondered I wonder what their
story is I wonder if they have an
amazing happy story something wonderful
happened in their life I wonder if they
have a sad story they lost a loved one
or perhaps maybe they have a scary
medical diagnosis ahead of them as well
but what was clear to me at that time
things changed and honestly I’ve never
looked at a stranger the same and it’s
something that I always play over and
over again in my head so as the years
went by it’s something that you don’t
think about as much and it’s something
that you just deal with with your family
and I had so much love and so much
support that they got us through a very
difficult time and for that I’m very
thankful
well today we’re here at Cranbrook to
talk about empathy and I think empathy
is the ability to put ourselves in
someone else’s shoes and understand
exactly how they feel what they’re
feeling what their concerns are and as
much as we’d love to think we can always
empathize with anybody we don’t always
have that ability we haven’t experienced
the same thing so I kind of feel that
there’s a fine line between empathy and
sympathy I can remember having to tell
people in my family or friends what had
happened in the diagnosis and at that
time I felt so bad because there’s that
split second when you tell somebody and
they want to say the right thing and
they don’t know exactly what to say they
want to do the right thing and they
don’t know exactly what to do but I can
promise you that nobody during that time
said the wrong thing or did the wrong
thing they always did exactly what they
needed to do and it helped this
community of Cranbrook is full of people
that surrounded my family during that
time they’re empathetic they’re
sympathetic they’re just kind caring
Souls and they want to help well fast
forward to 2009 and now our girls are
grown up and they’re at Brookside and
I’m back to doing what I love very much
and that’s teaching in the classroom and
at this point in 2009 I’ve been at
Cranbrook for three years and I’m having
a lunch conversation with somebody and I
hear about the event Cranbrook envisions
a cure currently the event has been
going on this will be our ninth year
this fall but at this point it was the
inaugural year and Cranbrook envisions a
cure is a time when the Cranbrook
community comes together and other
people outside of the community and we
meet on this beautiful campus in the
fall beside kingswood lake and families
that have struggled with cancer or
interested in finding a cure for cancer
come together and share stories and walk
together around kingswood Lake and I
knew
was something that I wanted to help with
so I reached out to the lady that
started it and she too was a breast
cancer survivor and at the time worked
at Brookside school and I asked if I
could help well it’s eight years later
and every year the event becomes more
and more wonderful and a couple years
ago we meet after the event every year
and talk about what went well and what
we could do better in the future and
this one particular year we thought we
would love more people to know about
this event we want more people to be
here because we would hear from them I
wish I would have known I would have
attended I had no idea that was going on
and as a teacher in the upper school I
thought maybe there was something that I
could do we have many many clubs at
Cranbrook upper school but we didn’t
have this club Cranbrook and vision
secure club and it just kind of flowed
real nicely so I reached out to some
students and with their help and their
hard work and their determination we
created two years ago Cranbrook
envisions a cure Club in our first year
we had a very successful fundraiser in
this past fall we were able to give
donations to four of the main charities
that attended the event large donations
and what’s special about that event each
fall is every single charity that shows
up at Cranbrook envisions a cure has a
special Cranbrook connection to our
community whether it’s an alum a student
or a family that is struggled with
cancer this year we’ve had another
successful year with our club we have
twenty members and the featured charity
for this coming fall is Gilda’s Club
next month the students of our club will
Tran will travel to Royal Oak and
present Gilda’s Club with a very large
donation for a memorial garden that
they’ll be planning as soon as the
weather warms up so that’s a little the
background of how I became involved with
Cranbrook and vision secure and the club
in closing today I know a cancer
diagnosis is scary for any family and I
know that we don’t always get the
outcome that we had hoped for
my family knows this because we lost my
mom two and a half years ago to breast
cancer but for my story there were two
little girls that we were really worried
about I’m sorry
and last June my oldest I was able to
give her her diploma from Cranbrook and
that little three month old two nights
ago I gave her Junior ring so I very
think upon grateful thanks [Applause]