"The chance to be rich, famous or wildly successful is rare. The opportunity to be kind is all around us, act on it!" - S Martin
In 2007, my Dad was diagnosed with cancer and started chemo treatments. Now, lucky for him, he got megadoses of Benadryl with each chemo treatment and promptly would fall asleep, leaving my siblings or I without much to do. So, on my first turn sitting with my dozing Dad, I fell into one of my favorite pastimes - watching people, i.e. the oncology staff of the Fenway Harvard Vanguard Oncology Unit. The more I watched - the more impressed I got. These men and women are surrounded daily by this horrendous disease - cancer. All of them – the office personnel, the oncology nurses, the doctors, the volunteers – their hearts were on their sleeves – they were doing all they could to ease the ordeal of chemo day for each and every patient. Now I am truly a glass-half-full kind of girl, but I’m not sure I could do their jobs. I am a busy person - I don’t sit still. But I will never forget the first time that I sat with my dozing Dad, I was still, I was mesmerized by the humanity surrounding me and my father. … So I started thinking – what can I do to help these ladies? – what can I do to honor their caring?
That is how Hats for Hope was born. During 2009 I sent in nearly 60 hats that I had knitted to my Dad’s oncology unit. As winter closed in around Boston in 2010, it became clear to me that I could not keep up with the demand. So I have started to lean on family, friends and coworkers to help in the task. I don’t know where this journey will take me – but I know I think about each patient as I make each hat, and I wish for them the hope and faith that tomorrow will be a better day.