Promise Me (25 page)
Authors: Nancy G. Brinker
“I’m back. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too, Norman. I can’t wait to see you.”
“We’re having dinner,” he said. “Bring Eric.”
I
n the early 1950s, a Dallas socialite named Nancy Ann Smith attended a spectacular charity ball at the Waldorf-Astoria. Swept up in the spectacle of New York City’s upper crust in all its glory—and duly impressed by the amount of money raised for disadvantaged children—she returned to Texas, rallied a contingent of ladies who were up to her standards, and organized the first annual Crystal Charity Ball. The Crystal Ball quickly became
the
holiday event to see and be seen at, and in the fifty-odd years since then, the ball and related fashion shows, silent auctions, and luncheons have generated over $88 million to benefit children’s charities in the Dallas area.
When Norman asked me to go with him, he felt the need to add, “The other lady I asked couldn’t go.”
I guess this was his way of applying the brakes, letting me know he wasn’t about to be roped into anything.
“Norman,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “For the last time. I said I’d marry you. You don’t have to keep trying to impress me.”
I loved seeing the startled look on his face when I teased him like that.
Women on the prowl were supposed to be subtle about it. Don’t scare the man off, heavens no. Norman liked it that I had no intention of prowling. And I wouldn’t have been in love with a man who was that easily scared off.
I’d been to the Crystal Ball back in my Neiman Marcus days and to what felt like a thousand tony charity galas, brunches, and lunches since then. After a while they all started to blur together, but this one I do remember. Norman had been late with his RSVP, and the event had been oversold, so we were seated at one of the extra tables outside the ballroom. I’m sure the rest of the partygoers out in the hall were disgruntled about the arrangement, but we were thrilled. Not a soul got in or out of that ballroom without passing directly by us, and we made the most of the opportunity to meet and greet everyone.
As the evening went on, Norman and I worked the party in perfect harmony. The few people he didn’t know from business or political functions, I knew from arts luncheons and cancer fundraisers.
“Norman. By the fountain.” I tipped my chin toward someone I knew he needed to talk to. “Let’s spend a few minutes there, swing left, sweep right, finish the room on a straight path toward the foyer.”
“Sounds good, Bruni.”
We reached the grandstand just as the mayor and his wife were being presented. The rest of the evening felt a lot like that big waltz number from
The King and I
.
A few days later, we went to a Christmas party for the Young Presidents’ Organization, then the Steak & Ale corporate Christmas party, and a steady schedule of political and social events typical of the season. After a while, we didn’t have to say a word. Walking in the door, he’d give me that unabashed once-over and a look that said,
Ready?
And I’d give him a look that said,
I’m with you
.
Norman was great in a ballroom. Affable, funny, full of great stories, but eager to listen to the great stories of others. He’d become friends with Stephen Covey long before we met (and long before Covey’s book
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
switched on a guiding light for all kinds of leaders). Norm embodied the philosophy of “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” He wasn’t one of those people who suck a lot of air out of the room. There was no holding forth or holding court. Norman
wasn’t there to make sure everyone knew who he was; he wanted to learn who they were and what they were doing and if there was anything he could do to help. I’ve never known anyone as guilelessly likable as Norman Brinker, and I suspect a lot of other people would tell you the same thing.
“It’s a luxury to go to these things and not have to hold somebody’s hand,” he told me. “I don’t have to look around to make sure you’re okay or stop to coach you to talk to people. I always know we’re together, even when you’re on the other side of the room.”
Neither of us was big on public displays of affection, but the chemistry between us must have been fairly apparent. I wasn’t aware of the pointed looks at first. Many eyes on Norman Brinker and this new woman he was squiring around. This younger woman.
The truth is, I’d always dated older men largely because so many of the boys who came of age with me in the late 1960s smoked pot, and Suzy and I simply didn’t want to be around that. Here I was, a nice girl from a nice family, seeing a nice man who drove a really awful car. I couldn’t understand why someone would glare at me in the ladies’ room or make a barbed remark at the coat check.
One evening, a woman dripping in diamonds cornered Norman as we stood in a receiving line. She kissed the air next to his cheek and said, “Norman, sugar! Call me. I have someone wonderful for you to meet. I mean …
really.
”
Of course, now that I’m a woman of a certain age, as they say, I understand. The talent pool gets pretty shallow when it comes to men in their fifties and sixties. It’s hardly a pool at all. More like a birdbath. Men my age are dating women half theirs; if I dated a man half my age, the kindest thing I’d be called is a “cougar.” Back then, many women of a certain age jumped to the harshest possible conclusion when they saw me walk in on Norman’s arm, and I’m probably guilty, on occasion, of jumping to the same harsh conclusions about young women I see dating up today. But I do try to curb the impulse to be catty. I remember too well what the claws felt like.
The second week of December we attended an important dinner for the World Affairs Council. Some attendees were nodding off and checking their watches during a deeply troubling after-dinner speech about
the depletion of natural resources, but I was riveted by this vivid illustration of the very concept I’d been trying to get my head around.
I passed Norman a note:
So like the cancer world—funding, politics, science, culture, human factor—key is interconnectedness of all.
Norman studied it for a moment, scribbled on the back, and passed it to me.
Are you for real?
I wrote back:
US foreign mineral dependence 80% v Soviet 20%? Scary!
Norman turned it over, scribbled, passed it again.
I love you.
We were married on Valentine’s Day, 1981.
I wore a red dress.
T
HE PEOPLE
who truly love us free us to be our true selves. This was Heather Gardner Starcher’s last gift to her brother Shawn Gardner.
“I’m a co-survivor,” Shawn says. “Five minutes before I knew Heather had breast cancer I wouldn’t have guessed it would redefine who I am and what I do, rewrite everything about my life. It’s not just inspiration—though she did inspire me, always—it’s a passion and my duty to do whatever I can to fight this thing.”
The day Heather was diagnosed, Shawn ran out of the hospital into the rain, and he’s still running. He talks about breast cancer to everyone who’ll listen, including media, women’s groups, and the U.S. Senate. He rallies his students at South County Secondary School in Lorton, Virginia, to participate in talent shows and Wear Pink to School Day. He and his husband, Chris Barron, bring their families together with dozens of other members of Team Heather to participate in the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure every year in Washington, D.C.
At this writing, about to run their tenth Global Race, Team Heather has raised almost a quarter of a million dollars—75 percent of which stays local, funding research, prevention, and screening, as well as services for underserved women.
Growing up on a quiet street in Manchester, Ohio, the Gardners were the quintessential all-American family on the block, with conservative Catholic parents and smart, well-behaved children: Shawn, Heather, and their sister, Renee. From the time she was a teenager, Heather volunteered with Big Brothers and Big Sisters and as a counselor at Camp Wonderlung, an Ohio summer camp for kids disabled by asthma. She was bright and beautiful, the type of young woman you hope your little girl will grow up to be.
One morning in the spring of 2001, twenty-five-year-old Heather rolled over in bed, and her arm brushed a lump in her breast. Her mother had already survived breast cancer, so Heather knew the drill. She immediately went in to the doctor, and when the doctor sent her home with assurances that “Women this age don’t get breast cancer,” she immediately pursued a second opinion.
“The surgeon came out and just crushed our world,” says Shawn. “She told us it was Stage IV. It had spread to the surrounding lymph nodes, spidered everywhere. She said it would almost certainly take Heather’s life.”
Shawn ran out into the rain and called Renee. Then there was a blur of activity. Tests, phone calls, logistics. Heather was admitted to Ireland Cancer Center in Cleveland. A team of specialists was assembled. They were straightforward about the gravity of the situation and the long road ahead. Heather and her family knew it was going to be rough. They formed a treatment plan, but there was something Heather needed to do before she started down that rough road.
The first Saturday in June 2001, Heather stood at the starting line for the Susan G. Komen National (now the Global) Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C., and her family stood with her.
“I think she needed to connect with other people going through this and gather her forces for what was coming,” Shawn says. “It was powerful. It gave us all a lot of strength. This was huge for my mom, who was a survivor, and now her daughter was diagnosed. A lot of tears and a lot of hope, sharing stories with so many people, so many families. We weren’t even thinking about raising money that first year, but we did raise a few thousand dollars. It just kind of happened without trying.”
The year that followed was a roller coaster of joy and sorrow. Heather underwent a TRAM flap procedure (a mastectomy with reconstruction using skin, adipose tissue, and minor muscles from the abdomen) along with chemo and radiation. She kept working at her father’s insurance agency, traveled around northeast Ohio speaking about the importance of early detection, and in the spring of 2002 married her high school sweetheart, Jason Starcher.
“She’d go hatless and wigless to treatment,” Shawn remembers, “because she wanted people to ask her about it. She was eager to talk about
breast cancer to other young women, older women, girls, families, everybody.”
The first week of June 2002, Team Heather was back at the starting line in D.C., having expanded to include even more family and friends.
Chris was there, and Heather asked Shawn, “Who is that guy?”
“He’s a friend,” Shawn hedged. “This lawyer I know.”
It didn’t seem like the appropriate time or place to “out” himself to his conservative family—if there was such a thing as an appropriate place to shift their world on its axis.
Over the summer, Heather’s cancer continued to metastasize. It had reached her brain and raged like wildfire through her organs. There was more chemo, full brain radiation, music and massage therapy, frantic late-night hospital runs. As autumn leaves turned spectacular, Heather entered in-home hospice care. She’d lost much of her sight and hearing, but Shawn sat with her for long hours, talking, listening, being together.
“I couldn’t bear to have anything separate us. Not at this point. I confided in her, told her this is who I am and who Chris is. She couldn’t really talk anymore, so I wasn’t even sure if she actually heard or understood me, but I wanted to tell her.”
Later that evening, Heather struggled to speak.
“Lawyer … the lawyer … the lawyer,” she finally managed. Then she told her parents, “Don’t be mad at Shawn.”
“She knew it was going to be hard for them,” he says.
A priest came and pronounced the Anointing of the Sick. Loved ones made their last visits. Heather died on a peaceful evening in late September, surrounded by people who loved her, leaving a company of caregivers and co-survivors who were deeply battered and sleepless with grief.
“There was this overwhelming need to just huddle together after everything we’d been through,” says Shawn. “My parents were so wounded. I was torn between wanting to be there for them and hating these little white lies that had to happen to protect them. In October, I told them I was gay, and it was hard, but my mom and dad were not about to lose another child. They just embraced me and embraced Chris as part of our family.”
The first week of June 2003, Chris’s family joined Team Heather at the National Race for the Cure in D.C., and in the seven years since, Shawn’s
efforts to raise research funds and awareness have taken on the dimension of a second full-time job. As an eighth-grade English teacher, he tells his students about the dynamic of purpose and the practical magic of grassroots activism. As a warrior in this cause, he’s both relentless and hopeful.
“The first time I crossed the finish line without Heather, it was emotionally exhausting, but I promised I wouldn’t stop until there’s a cure. Losing my sister was a catalyst that sort of shot me out of a cannon. I thought I knew where my life was going. I had my work. I wasn’t out, but I think I would have taken that step eventually. Probably. I don’t know. The way this has consumed my life, it’s hard to imagine what I’d be doing if things had gone differently.” He clears his throat and adds, “I wish I’d had a chance to find out.”
This is all agonizingly familiar to me. The first time I heard Shawn Gardner give voice to what co-survivorship means to him and his family—and to Chris and his family—I was instantly back in that year after Suzy died.
Cannonball
is an apt comparison. Or perhaps this is our coping mechanism of choice. All I know is that, for Shawn and me, there’s nothing voluntary about this particular volunteer work, and the same is true for many people I meet at every SGK event. The loss of a sister or mother or daughter leaves a lit fuse. Something’s going to happen. Perhaps one of the most important functions of the Race for the Cure is that it gives co-survivors an opportunity to come together. It’s a powerfully positive way to release that explosive energy as they struggle to find and redefine themselves and each other. Almost without fail, the love conquers all, the petty falls away, the true selves shine through.
Shawn Gardner and Chris Barron were married in March 2010, when the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Act took effect in Washington, D.C.
In the Catholic tradition, St. Augustine’s Prayer for the Sick implores: “Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ. Rest your weary ones. Bless your dying ones. Soothe your suffering ones. Pity your afflicted ones. Shield your joyous ones. And for all your love’s sake. Amen.”
How moving—and how appropriate—to include co-survivors in that blessing. For the suffering, there’s comfort. For the weary, rest. For the afflicted, compassion. And for love’s sake, joy.
