What David Bowie, Lucy Wing and my Dear Mother Mary Have in Common.

To all my LinkedIn connections —

Normally, I restrict my Linkedin posts to management issues. Today, I was saddened to learn the legendary David Bowie had lost his life to cancer. Around the world, countless others (less famous perhaps, but no less important) will also die this way today. Just last week our family lost our dear friend Lucy Wing to the disease. As cancer reaches epidemic levels, it increasingly affects all of us as managers, employees, and as people. Cancer's costs are borne beyond the home, hindering workplaces, sapping productivity, and everywhere draining resources. With this in mind, I’m straying just a bit from my usual content. 

AVRO / CC BY-SA 3.0

My family, like many families, has experienced caring for a loved one affected by cancer. My mother, Mary, has been enduring pancreatic cancer for the better part of two years. 

Today, she is near the end of her life. Yet she continues to be an extraordinary woman, and at 93 years of age, still the woman she always has been but for the cancer that is taking over her body. She is brilliant and kind, creative yet practical, incredibly strong and independent, wise and, well, just inspirational. She is a bridge champion, winning the very day several weeks ago that her cancer started to overwhelm her. She was an English language teacher and scholar (and fierce corrector of her children’s grammatical errors!).  The best mother to five children and in many ways she was the organizer of our family, and one who always found a way to solve any problem. When our family could afford to build a home to accommodate its expansion, our mother made it possible by learning how to design one! And then, she did it again. She always found a way to make everything possible. But then this cancer came, and her options and her ability to take control and create possibilities, ended. 

She has had the best care possible from the Pancreatic Cancer Clinic at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto – one of the five top cancer research facilities in the world. She is fortunate that her care is organized under the leadership of the incomparable Dr. Jennifer Knox and her oncology care team (led by the deeply knowledgeable Dr. Neesha Dhani). But the solution has not yet been found, and these researchers and doctors need us to help them continue their work to give people like my mother Mary more options, more possibilities, and – eventually – a cure.

Everyone in our family wonders what we can do to help and the #NoHairSelfie campaign is one modest contribution I can make to give solidarity with her and our family. It is my small statement that we will try to make a difference in the fight against cancer, inspired by her heroic example. 

By shaving my head on February 4, 2016 – World Cancer Day, I’m demonstrating my support and solidarity for my mother along with the thousands of cancer patients who undergo treatment each year. And I’m raising funds for cancer research! 

So please help in any way you can and help us conquer cancer in our lifetime. See my fundraising page to donate and learn more. 

Don