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| ‘Calendar girl’ raises money for
breast cancer awareness |
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| BY
CRISTELA GUERRA |
 BOYNTON
BEACH – Martha Clarke, 60 spends every Christmas with her daughter.
That’s how they always did it, either she went up to Virginia to
visit or her daughter, Brenda Moore, came down to Boynton Beach with
her husband and three kids.
It was a family tradition, and those
aren’t usually broken. Sometimes, though, they are interrupted by
life’s complications, like illness.
It was in December 2005
that one of those interruptions fell on this family’s doorstep a
little after the holiday season. Moore had planned a doctor’s
appointment for a couple of days after Christmas.
“ ‘Maybe I
should just cancel,’ she told me, but I told her to go right ahead
and keep her appointment,” said Clark, of Boynton Beach.
That
was the best advice she could have given her daughter. When
Moore found out her doctors had identified a lump, and had her first
diagnosis of breast cancer, she was 39 years old.
Today, more
than two years later, and after a lumpectomy to remove the cancer,
four months of chemotherapy and 40 days of radiation, Martha Clarke
and her daughter are still celebrating holidays and sharing days
together.
Their story is one of many featured in a national
breast cancer awareness calendar to show what they’ve overcome.
Called a “Calendar to Live By,” the calendar was an idea proposed by
Moore’s breast cancer support group in Virginia, which is named
“Beyond Boobs.” Its focus is on younger women who are dealing with
breast cancer, and women like Moore, who have survived it.
Mary Beth Gibson, one of the two founders of Beyond Boobs,
originally met Moore at a breast cancer post-treatment retreat.
Gibson and Moore were two of only three women at the retreat under
the age of 40. The third woman was the other founder of Beyond
Boobs, René Bowditch.
“We talked about how different it is in
many ways,’’ Gibson said. “Dealing with breast cancer while having
young kids in the house.”
The base age for a mammogram is
normally 35, she said. But unfortunately, most women don’t usually
get examined until far into their 40s, increasing the risk of not
finding the cancer early enough.
The American Cancer
Society’s yearly statistics also say that though breast cancer tends
to be more common in white women, young African-American women are
more likely to die from it. In some cases, it can be deadlier for
black women if it is not found in time.
Martha Clarke looks
at the calendar fondly, flipping to the page where she and her
daughter are shown in a warm embrace, for the month of June 2008.
“It was one of the hardest times of my life as a parent,” Clarke
said. “I remember the day she called me and finding out what it was,
I was so frustrated I just slammed my fist down on a glass table
because there was truly nothing I could do to fix it.”
To
take control of the situation, they did research and, as a family,
educated themselves.
“I guess it’s what you do sometimes to
avoid panic, you arm yourself with knowledge,” Clarke said, her
hands resting on her lap.
She paused for a moment before
continuing.
“I was the first person she called,” Clarke said.
“And the only thing I kept thinking at the time was, ‘Why couldn’t
it have been me?’ She’d been married for 18 years, straight out of
college. I had lived a full life already—why couldn’t it have been
me?”
Clarke flew out every month from February to May 2006 to
take care of her daughter while she was in chemotherapy.
Sometimes, she just kept her daughter’s company, or sat in the
living room and took care of her grandchildren. On the weekends,
they shopped and talked when Moore had more strength. When she
didn’t, they made scrapbooks.
Clarke even bought her daughter
her nicest wig when the chemotherapy began taking a toll on her
hair.
When the calendar photographer asked Moore about the
one thing that got her through all this, her answer was simple.
“My mother,’’ she said. “She was my rock. She was there for me
through every moment, including when I would get angry. She talked
me through it, telling me to be strong even if I never found out why
this happened.”
Clarke said she was surprised at her
daughter’s answer because she didn’t think she did anything out of
the ordinary.
“Number one, it was important for her to
get back to good health,” Clarke said. “And number two, to limit the
disruption to the household to as small as possible.”
This
included taking the role of a counselor, friend and support system
even today.
The disease hasn’t come back, and Clarke doesn’t
even think about that possibility. And seeing her daughter
this past Christmas, back to her normal self, allowed her to have
the faith to hope it won’t be back.
“The experience has, I
think, helped us both begin to appreciate life and let go of
dwelling on the little things,” she said.
Both Moore and
Clarke also plan to keep the next generation, their daughters and
granddaughters, aware of the risk, and to educate them early on
breast health.
The calendar features information on
preventing breast cancer, diagnosis and treatment.
Ten
percent of sales will go to benefit the Tidewater affiliate of Susan
G. Komen for the Cure, a network of breast cancer survivors that
raises money to fight the illness. The rest goes to help the group
continue educating people on breast health.
The calendars can
be purchased at “A Calendar to Live By’’ at www.beyondboobsinc.org.
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Photo by Khary Bruyning. Martha Clarke holds a
calendar picturing herself and her daughter, Brenda Moore.
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 11
April 2008 ) |
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