Day 1 - Life Skills Ambassador
Packets of Hope: A Journey of Healing and Rediscovery will be released October 1, 2025. The first chapter is available to read below.
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Day 1 – Life Skills Ambassador
January 18, 2025
In the Atlantic Ocean sailing south to Miami
Today I left my home in New York City after spending the last five years for the most part homebound. First the pandemic, then taking care of my husband, John, during a heart-breaking period of illness from mixed dementia. Then, my own illnesses. Breast cancer, then lung cancer. I’m 63 and trying to figure out who I was before those five years and who I should be in any years I have left.
Toward the end of 2019, Alzheimer’s disease had taken hold of John. This man was my soulmate and my reason to get up each morning. I loved him more than I loved myself. I did everything in my power to make him as healthy and happy as possible, including becoming his full-time caregiver. Given his refusal to let anyone else help him, I had no choice. But also, I knew I would do the best job. When COVID hit in 2020, my husband and I went into a bubble.
John passed in November of 2023, a few days after his 90th birthday. That 90th birthday had kept him going for months. I reminded him often that the special day was coming. I started giving him gifts the week before his birthday so he wouldn’t be overwhelmed on the actual day, but also so he would have some fun things to have in front of him at meals—his appetite had waned dramatically, as it does when one suffers from dementia. Having gifts around him at mealtime got him to the table and focused on nutrition, at least for a while.
At 6:00 p.m. on November 12, I kissed my husband on his lips as he slept in bed. He kissed me back! At 8:00 p.m., there was no return kiss. By 10:30 p.m., he had passed. I was devastated. First, very angry that he would leave me all alone. I never thought the day would come. I thought I would pass first—I had had breast cancer and a double mastectomy in 2022 and was convinced I had to find people to care for John when I died. And then, he left me! We were inseparable for two decades. We loved doing everything together. I told him he was my oxygen, and he was. And without him, I didn’t want to live. And after his passing came my lung cancer diagnosis.
Lung cancer kills more people each year than colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined. I was now a widow, down two breasts, and without ¼ of my lungs after they removed my upper left lung on my birthday in March of 2024. What’s worse, I was diagnosed with two primary lung cancers. They surgically removed my upper left lung where the first and larger tumor was, but they couldn’t surgically remove the cancer in the lower left lung because that would have left me with one lung, and as I was told, “With only one lung, you’ll need to be on oxygen for the rest of your life.” After surgery there was chemotherapy. Everyone’s journey with chemo is different and mine was made more difficult by, despite trying to be in a bubble, contracting COVID. And that’s not all. I developed some strange infection in my body that necessitated lots of antibiotics. I needed a root canal, so that meant even more antibiotics. And my white blood cell count was tanking, so my thoracic oncologist had me get an IV infusion of a medicine that was so creepy I find it difficult to describe in any way other than it was as if aliens had taken over my bones and were fighting me from my marrow out. It was horrible! And dealing with all of this without the person who had been my biggest champion, my source of strength, made me want to die.
During those long, difficult months, my doctors, friends, and family pushed me to keep going and, when I recovered, to live again. One of my doctors said, “Travel! Take a trip and get away.” I hadn’t traveled outside of my home since John and I took a three-week cruise in early 2019. If I were to take a trip, it would be one that we had dreamt of taking together—a world cruise. But the idea of going away by myself for months seemed crazy and self-indulgent. That was until my friend Sandy, an educator, told me about traveling with purpose. She said you get away from home on a vacation, but you accomplish things outside yourself. “Travel with purpose.” Yes, I thought, I can do this! And I knew exactly what my purpose would be: I would continue the work that meant so much to John and me during all our years together, the work of the nonprofit organization I had founded in 1992, Overcoming Obstacles.
Overcoming Obstacles’ mission is to help ensure all children learn the life skills they need to achieve success, skills like the ability to communicate effectively, make good decisions, achieve meaningful goals, and resolve conflicts. These skills are the lifeblood for an individual navigating their way each day, for ensuring a nurturing school environment, and for developing a thriving community. Since 1992, we have helped educators in 190 countries positively impact the lives of 177 million children. But billions more children still need to be reached. In essence, our work has just begun.
Knowing my desire to travel with purpose, Overcoming Obstacles Managing Director Vinny Capone—a man young enough to be my son but wise enough to lead a global curriculum publishing organization—made me business cards with the title “Life Skills Ambassador,” and our Board of Directors enthusiastically approved a new outreach strategy: During the maiden world voyage of Cunard’s Queen Anne cruise ship, I would bring Overcoming Obstacles information to education leaders in every port. In spring of 2024, I put my deposit down and boarded the Queen Anne in Brooklyn for what would be the most challenging and rewarding time of my life.