My Brother-In-Law

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Terrilox

Mark and Jonathan: August 12, 2007

My brother-in-law passed away sud­denly and with­out warn­ing last Tues­day, May 1st.

He was a devoted hus­band to his wife and soul mate, Deb­bie, and her two beau­ti­ful chil­dren, Emily and Justin.

Deb­bie and Mark: August 12, 2007

 

I do not believe I can write a fit­ting trib­ute to Mark,  except to say that every time I was with him, we had a great time.  He loved rid­ing roller coast­ers more than any grown man I had ever met.  He was a big kid at heart and inspired the kid in you when you were with him.  He was full of joy, and full of life and regard­less of cir­cum­stances, his zest for life and his love for those he cared about always came through.  I wish geog­ra­phy had not kept us from know­ing each other better.

My hus­band wrote a beau­ti­ful trib­ute to his brother, and that is what I will post here in his honor:

I’m writ­ing this note at the end of a chaotic week of unfath­omable loss after the pass­ing of my brother, Mark.  Sud­denly and with­out any warn­ing.  He was 48.

Some of you knew him, some of you didn’t; I wanted to reach out to all of you days ago.  But the news was too ter­ri­ble.  The wired world of elec­tronic com­mu­ni­ca­tion can iron­i­cally enable pri­vate pain, mak­ing it eas­ier to hide and avoid the kinds of con­ver­sa­tions rare in the age of mobile phones, email and tex­ting.  But it wouldn’t have mat­tered.  The words didn’t come anyway.

I sim­ply can­not believe I am writ­ing these thoughts about some­one who was far more than a cen­tral part of my life.  There’s not a sin­gle vivid mem­ory of any of my for­ma­tive and even later years in which he does not play a prin­ci­pal role.  We shared every expe­ri­ence, every encounter and every occur­rence of only sib­lings from a not-so-large imme­di­ate fam­ily and not a big extended one.

He doesn’t have to be enlarged now, greater than he was in life, but I wish that he be remem­bered as a sin­cere and decent per­son of true tal­ents and the most gen­uine nature.  He was utterly with­out guile.  He pos­sessed none of the dark cun­ning of manip­u­la­tive people.

He was warm and wel­com­ing.  He was car­ing to the point of emo­tion.  More than the “shirt-off-his-back” kind of guy, he would give you the enthu­si­asm of his con­vic­tions.  If he liked you, you had a loyal and devoted friend who might even brag to peo­ple who didn’t know you about how ter­rific you were.  If he loved you, he was all that and more: Part body­guard, part advo­cate, part fol­lower, part fan.

Mark was no indi­vid­u­al­ist — he was an ide­al­ist.  He pre­ferred the com­pany of oth­ers of shared pur­pose and belief.  He could be inspired, and, in turn, he could inspire others.

He had breath­tak­ing gifts.  With­out any real for­mal art lessons, he could sketch with char­coal, paint with oils, etch glass by hand.  In mere hours, he could build stun­ningly detailed mod­els.  I once saw him pick up a pen and script cal­lig­ra­phy just from an invi­ta­tion he’d seen before.

These were no fam­ily traits.  I can barely hand-write.

For many years, we had lived on oppo­site sides of the coun­try and saw each other less and less.  And I took to describ­ing him in dif­fer­ent ways to friends and acquain­tances, but always with one com­mon detail: My brother has a great, big heart.  I thought that summed up civil­ity, kind­ness … even honor.  That was him.

Mark could be gen­er­ous to a fault and loyal to a point beyond that, but even these osten­si­ble flaws are derived from admirable virtue.  This is because his heart held his finest qual­i­ties.  So he offered his heart first and always and to many.  Ulti­mately, his heart failed him.

The flood of mem­o­ries is over­whelm­ing, but one rec­ol­lec­tion returns again and again.  I don’t know why.  When we were eight and 12 years old, we were stand­ing in line at a gro­cery store where we had walked to pick up items for the week­end (kids did that then).  A man looked at us and said, “You two don’t really look alike.  But you look like brothers.”

We were dif­fer­ent in many respects, but alike in big ways.  He should be remem­bered for what was best about him.  And I will remem­ber to be more like his good and gal­lant ways.

Jonathan Wilcox
May 6, 2012
Wood­land Hills, CA

 

Posted in Family, Ramblings | Tagged | 5 Comments

National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week: April 3–9, 2011

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Terrilox

National Young Adult Can­cer Aware­ness Week is April 3–9, 2011. It starts this Sunday!

Ear­lier this month, I had the honor of sit­ting down with one of the pio­neer oncol­o­gists in the young adult can­cer move­ment, Dr. Leonard S. Sender. Dr. Sender is the Med­ical Direc­tor of the CHOC Children’s Can­cer Insti­tute and the Direc­tor of the Young Adult Can­cer Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Irvine Chao Fam­ily Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Cen­ter. He is also Editor-in-Chief of The Jour­nal of Ado­les­cent & Young Adult Oncol­ogy and serves as Chair­man of the Board for the I’m Too Young For This! Can­cer Foun­da­tion.

One of the top­ics we dis­cussed at great length were the psy­choso­cial issues that young adults with can­cer face. Their sto­ries were as diverse as their can­cers, but one theme remained con­stant. Derail­ment. I believe no mat­ter when you get can­cer your life is derailed, but when you are young this detour can be more jar­ring. Young adults are gen­er­ally in a state of start­ing and/or becom­ing, and have yet to expe­ri­ence one or more of the many mile­stones we are most likely to cross between the ages of 15–39. Whether they are start­ing school, a career, a mar­riage — or becom­ing a pro­fes­sional, a spouse  or a  par­ent, they are in the process of devel­op­ing their adult selves.  As some­one who is 41, I still feel like I am in a state of becom­ing and start­ing, so I can only imag­ine if my 25 year old self had to think about freez­ing eggs or recon­struct­ing breasts how alone and con­fused she might feel.

In the words of 27 year old melanoma sur­vivor, Cindi, “You think because you’re young, you’re invin­ci­ble. No you’re not.”

I would like to thank my client, Vital Options Inter­na­tional for allow­ing me to do this work as well as Dr. Sender and every­one who sup­ported our efforts at the Uni­ver­sity of Irvine Chao Fam­ily Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Cen­ter.  And of course noth­ing is pos­si­ble with the sur­vivors will­ing to share a part of their jour­ney with you:  Yas­min, Vicki, Renee, Cindi, Son, Danny, Jenee, Carey and Natalie thank you for all you gave that afternoon.

 

Posted in Cancer Survivors, Multiplicity Media, Video Clips | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Magazine Recipe Review: Slow-Cooker Vegetarian Chili with Sweet Potatoes

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Terrilox

I am always cut­ting recipes out of mag­a­zines and never actu­ally mak­ing them.  In fact, I have an entire file ded­i­cated to “Mag­a­zine Recipes.”  Lately, in an effort to expand our culi­nary hori­zons, I have been try­ing to make at least one new recipe a week.

This week, due to an abun­dance sweet pota­toes and bell pep­pers sit­ting our refrig­er­a­tor, I chose Slow-Cooker Veg­e­tar­ian Chili with Sweet Pota­toes from Real Sim­ple Mag­a­zine. I served it over bas­mati rice, which I made with an infu­sion of fresh squeezed lime.  It was won­der­ful meal for a cool, rainy night.

My hus­band is a picky eater.  He would argue on that point, but I stand by my state­ment.  Before mak­ing the recipe I pre­sented it to him for ingre­di­ent approval.  He does not love sweet pota­toes like I do, but he signed off on the din­ner and out came my Crock-Pot.

I love my Crock-Pot. If I could cook in it every day, I would, but our refrig­er­a­tor would be over­flow­ing with left­overs we would never fin­ish.  I inher­ited my father’s aver­sion to left­overs, though I am get­ting bet­ter, espe­cially if I cooked the left­overs in ques­tion.  I will rarely eat food I bring home from a restau­rant meal, with the excep­tion of pizza.  A Crock-Pot meal needs at least four hun­gry peo­ple, so I try to make recipes two peo­ple will enjoy twice!

Boomer waited for our fin­ished bowls and enjoyed his sam­pling while watch­ing Mon­day night foot­ball.  Below, he is intensely focused on the Bears and Pack­ers.  He is for the Pack­ers, but he inher­ently knows they will not win.  For those of you who do not know, Boomer is named after the for­mer New York Jets quar­ter­back, Boomer Esi­a­son.  He has been an avid foot­ball fan since his first move to New York in 1995.

Boomer, a red tabby cat, Licking Dinner Bowl

Boomer enjoy­ing din­ner leftovers

After lick­ing the bowl and watch­ing the Pack­ers go down in a gal­lant defeat …  he went to bed, with­out wash­ing his chin, hop­ing Aaron Rogers makes it back to the Pack­ers start­ing line-up soon …

Boomer, a red tabby Persian, napping

Boomer nap­ping after lick­ing … with stuff all over his face.

I had to throw in a lit­tle Boomer moment.  Every­one seems to enjoy him, espe­cially me!

I basi­cally made the recipe a directed, except for the addi­tion of a red pep­per (because I had one lying around).  It has a very Indian feel to it over­all, which we both liked.  It would be excel­lent served with a side of naan bread.  My hus­band had two bowls, which is a con­fir­ma­tion of success!

The recipe is quite spicy, so if spice is an issue for you I would cut the chili pow­der down a bit.  When I make it again, I will dou­ble the sweet pota­toes as I really wanted more.  The recipe says to serve it with tor­tilla chips, sour cream, scal­lions and radishes.  I made the rice and served with just scal­lions for my hus­band and sour cream and scal­lions for me.

A healthy way to get lots of veg­eta­bles on a cool night.  If I were giv­ing out stars, I would give it four out of five.

Posted in Boomer, Cooking, Crock-Pot | Leave a comment

Breast Cancer Advocates Discuss the Impact of Elizabeth Edwards Passing

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Terrilox

Today I filmed all day at the 33rd Annual CTRC-AACR San Anto­nio Breast Can­cer Sym­po­sium.  This is my fourth time at this con­fer­ence, and as always, it is such an honor and quite hum­bling to be in the pres­ence of so many amaz­ing advo­cates and oncologists.

One of the high­lights of the day was film­ing Advo­cacy in Action for my client, Vital Options Inter­na­tional.  Advo­cacy in Action is an hour and a half pro­gram with three mod­er­a­tors and, in this case, a room full of breast can­cer advo­cates.   It will take sev­eral days to get all of Advo­cacy in Action edited from its cur­rent length of more than an hour.  Tonight, after eat­ing some fine Frito Pie and Texas Brisket (care of our friends at Glax­o­SmithK­line), I was inspired to edit a short clip and post this blog tonight.

Today’s Advo­cacy in Action was mod­er­ated by Selma Schim­mel, Founder of Vital Options Inter­na­tional and Host of The Group Room video series.  Join­ing Selma, was Elyse Spatz Caplan, Direc­tor of Pro­grams & Part­ner­ships at Liv­ing Beyond Breast Can­cer and Eliz­a­beth Woolfe, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Triple Neg­a­tive Breast Can­cer Foun­da­tion.

Approach­ing the end of the pro­gram this after­noon, an organic dis­cus­sion took place focus­ing on the news of Eliz­a­beth Edwards pass­ing and how the way it was reported could affect can­cer sur­vivors and care­givers neg­a­tively.  I found this moment in the advocate’s exchange fas­ci­nat­ing, and yet another true learn­ing expe­ri­ence in per­cep­tion for me.

As some­one who is not a can­cer sur­vivor, I am con­stantly reminded that there is a dif­fer­ent fil­ter over the survivor’s lens.  Their view of the world is tinted in a hue few of us, not hav­ing faced our own mor­tal­ity, can even see.  Can­cer sur­vivors have have an eighth color in their rainbows.

Most of us know the story by now, on Mon­day it was announced Eliz­a­beth Edwards had gone off treat­ment because dis­ease had spread to her liver and the next day she died.  Me, being the obliv­i­ous non-survivor of can­cer, read absolutely noth­ing into this beyond the gen­uine sor­row I feel every time I hear some­one has lost their battle.

Through the eyes of can­cer sur­vivors, and advo­cates specif­i­cally, a major­ity of the media was not mind­ful of how the story could be inter­preted by those bat­tling can­cer, specif­i­cally those who may have recently heard the state­ment, “You have liver metas­ta­sis.”  After lis­ten­ing to the dis­cus­sion, I had to admit, they had a point.

These three pio­neers in the breast can­cer advo­cate com­mu­nity have some won­der­ful reflec­tions on the sub­ject.  If you are a can­cer sur­vivor, I am sure you will appre­ci­ate them.  If you are not, watch, learn and sim­ply be grate­ful your rain­bow only has seven colors.

Liv­ing Beyond Breast Can­cer Blog:  Remem­ber­ing Eliz­a­beth Edwards

Posted in Advocacy in Action, Understanding Cancer | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Adventures in Baking: Cinnamon Rolls

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Terrilox

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls from Pioneer Woman

Home­made Cin­na­mon Rolls

I did it!  I made cin­na­mon rolls from scratch!

My hus­band is in love with me all over again.  It seems to hap­pen every time I cook. There is some­thing true about the way to a man’s heart is his stom­ach state­ment.  I did not believe it until I started cook­ing.  After you’re mar­ried for awhile, a cin­na­mon roll might be the most excit­ing new move you have, right?

Last week I made The Pio­neer Woman’s Parker House Rolls from scratch.  We ate these deli­cious rolls at Thanks­giv­ing.  As a result, I may never be allowed to pur­chase a bag of rolls again.

The only prob­lem with bak­ing bread from scratch is how much it makes.  I made 24 rolls for seven peo­ple on Thanks­giv­ing Day and then I came home and made an addi­tional 20 rolls and after almost 50 rolls, I still had half of the dough left.

These recipes must be for peo­ple who live on a farm with large fam­i­lies and sev­eral ranch hands work­ing in the fields or something …

The other half of the dough sat in our sec­ond refrig­er­a­tor for just over a week before I dared to approach it again.   After all, I don’t want to make any­one think fresh bread is some­thing they can expect on a reg­u­lar basis.

This morn­ing, I decided to take the Pio­neer Woman’s advice and make cin­na­mon rolls with the other por­tion of the dough.  I did not have any milk or any maple fla­vor­ing, so I had to impro­vise.  I basi­cally fol­lowed her icing recipe, sub­sti­tut­ing the milk for half-n-half with a lit­tle water added and vanilla fla­vor­ing for the maple.  I skipped the cof­fee, but  in hind­sight I think it would be really good with a vanilla-coffee icing.  Next time, I will keep the cof­fee in the icing.  I might even try the maple.  I did cut the icing recipe in half because I only made one pan of rolls and froze the other ones.  If you want a step-by-step bak­ing expe­ri­ence, head on over to ThePioneerWoman.com.

I said this last week, and I’ll say it again … knead­ing dough relaxes me.  As I stand there, punch­ing out and knead­ing the dough in my Spanish-style kitchen, I am trans­ported back to a time and place when LA Brea Bak­ery (now avail­able at Costco) and Oroweat were not pro­duc­ing bread for the masses. A time when get­ting up and whip­ping up bread was just some­thing you did to feed your family.

I think about my great-grandmother, Mamaw Wines.  I wish I had a pic­ture of her to insert here.  I imag­ine I do, some­where in the pic­ture box, but it alludes me right now.

Mamaw Wines had eight kids and gave birth six times.  I’ll do the math for you, she had TWO sets of fra­ter­nal twins (my Maw­maw was a twin).  There were no Crock Pots, con­ve­nience foods, or ready-made meals in your grocer’s freezer sec­tion — there was no easy way to get from point A to point B.  While we have a dizzy­ing array of options (one of them being never to cook), they had only a few, and Pills­bury was not one of them.  They sim­ply got up, started work­ing and kept going until their day was done. They were not fin­ished until every­one had eaten and their chores were com­plete.  So, as I stop and blog this nov­elty moment in my life about get­ting up on a lazy Sun­day morn­ing and “play­ing” a pio­neer woman, she actu­ally was a pio­neer woman.

I am hum­bled and no longer as impressed with my pio­neer­ing skills, but my hus­band thinks they are the best cin­na­mon rolls he has ever had, and in 2010 I can­not ask for more than that.

Go ahead, try some new moves.  Make cin­na­mon rolls.

Thank you Pio­neer Woman and Mamaw Wines for the inspiration.

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