Hello, Ladies.
Before you delve into this month's issue, I want to ask two questions: Have you ever felt so all alone in your emotional pain? Are you on the national bone marrow registry?
Candace Ribblett shares pieces of her story about a recent bad experience that brings her to heartbreaking tears. Even though I had the same bad experience, I really don't understand HER pain nor can I appreciate it because my emotional level of pain was less intensive. Furthermore, the empathy she shows for someone who I consider unworthy baffles me because it never crossed my mind to express some degree of empathy after my inhumane experience. I salute the compassion within her. That's that on that!
Adele Doctor, the 21st Century Woman Spotlight honoree, explains why more African-Americans should register as bone marrow donors. According to the National Marrow Donor Program's BE THE MATCH brochure, "seventy percent of patients do not have a donor match in their family. They depend on people like you." I joined the national marrow registry to help save a life. Are you on the registry? If not, think about it. That's that on that!
Enjoy!! -demetrice
Women All Over the World Cry Similar Tears
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Quantum physics aficionado Candace Ribblett showcases her favorite book. |
"If you have a certain belief about something that's negative, then it's not gonna fix the problem. But you can fix the past by the decisions that you make today all through a belief system."
-Candace Ribblett on getting back to moments of happiness after falling into a sinkhole of life.“Fell in the sinkhole of life, took me a while to see the Light,” Candace Ribblett responds in her e-mail almost three months later after my request to schedule an interview for this newsletter. "
“You fell into a "sink hole.” That's kind of deep. I sincerely hope that you are seeing the beauty of life. I do believe that you are going to recuperate just fine,” reads my reply.
She e-mails back, “I am kinda deep. I am learning to see the beauty in life. "For every setback/ sinkhole or challenge I face in life, my soul has the ability to emerge triumphant and stronger than before. Thanks for the encouragement. Do you know that encouragement is oxygen for the soul?”
We meet at one of her favorite places, Perkins Restaurant in Kissimmee, Florida, and we are ready. Candace walks in with a cane and is ready to talk. I am ready to ask only three questions because a mutual friend forewarned me of her awe-inspiring loquaciousness. She shares her touching poems, her long-held belief system and decades of personal pains. However, she had not prepared herself for displaying a very private emotional moment in a public establishment. As for me, I'm always prepared. In case of an emergency, I always carry around a full tank of “oxygen for the soul."
My first question references the ‘sinkhole’ statement. I mention the poetic nature of those words. The master builder, researcher and spiritual messenger, replies, “Yeah, that’s what I’m about. I kinda speak like that. Some people understand, but they don’t always understand.” Of course, at this point, I don't understand how people cannot not understand if they really understand. I listen more closely for clearer understanding.
Candace, a native Virginian who was born with cerebral palsy, openly discusses her recent diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism), quantum physics, lost perspective during moments of unhappiness, private tears shared with her empathetic cat, her cries of help to apathetic humans and that “awful birthday present” she received last December, the most altruistic month of the year.
She was at home assembling bicycles for the children of the family she adopted for Christmas when she received a call from a friend who offered his assistance. “But that wasn’t his intention at all,” she recalls of his arrival inside her home where she keeps a baseball bat near her bed.
The enemy, disguised as her friend, ignored her objections and overpowered her limited physical defenses. She played dead, rhetorically speaking, until he finished raping her body and parts of her soul. It was the only way for her to come out of the violent attack alive in hopes of witnessing a kinder more gentle tomorrow.
“Sometimes bad things happen to good people. People weren’t listening when I reached out for help,” says Candace, who believes the police officers seemed apathetic to the criminal act against her because the man who she thought was her friend told them it was consensual sex.
I don’t see it coming. When Candace opens her floodgates, I am not prepared to hold and console this woman who believes in the goodness of people despite their malicious nature to hurt good people like her. Instead I implore, “Candace, don’t cry on me.” Truthfully, I’m not equipped to handle unexpected emotional outpouring from someone in this much pain, particularly in public.
Metaphorically speaking, I wrap my consoling arms around Candace’s beautiful soul by revealing my story that happened 40 years ago on a dark night in a park. I didn’t tell her that instead of calling the police, I blamed myself and not my attacker. Although my heart knew a crime had been committed against me, my apathetic mind pronounced the attack as consensual sex because I should have gone home after my first “NO! and before the late evening turned into a dark nightmare. See, I thought he was my friend. More illogically, I thought he was man enough to take no for an answer. Most illogically, I foolishly thought like a tease and simply did not think like a self-respecting young woman.
Candace holds her head down, wipes tears from her eyes with a white paper napkin while crying out her pain, then says, “I could have let that ruin my life, but I choose not to…You have to be who you are, in control and follow the light that’s in your soul.”
Now I understand how some people who claim to understand cannot really understand without engaging in a spiritual quantum physics relationship with this compassionate human being in order to actually understand the heart wrenching pain deep down inside her glorious womanly soul. Candace believes that the synergy of spiritual thoughts will heal not only her aching soul, but the rapist's cold heart.
I don't fully understand her belief system - so I offer Candace my sisterly love and give her an abundance of oxygen for her soul.
-demetrice
Click here: The Howling Wolf Beyond the House by Candace.
21st Century Woman Spotlight
Director of Programs Adele Doctor in her office at the Kids Beating Cancer headquarters on Princeton Street in Orlando, Florida.
Director of Programs Adele Doctor in her office at the Kids Beating Cancer headquarters on Princeton Street in Orlando, Florida.
"People want to be rich or hit the lotto. But if what I'm doing is helping to save somebody's life, then I consider that the richest thing that anybody can have. I know that what I'm doing each day is helping somebody. I may never meet that person, but what I am doing is helping somebody. When I go on school campuses, they say, 'That's the marrow lady.' That's who I am! That's what I do!" - Adele Doctor
Fourteen years ago the soft-spoken cryptologic technician retired after serving fifteen years in the United States Navy, where she copied top secret Morse codes. She then began attending the University of Central Florida and studied broadcast news; however, the field proved too competitive for the thirty-something mother of three young children. She switched her major to public relations and landed an internship at Kids Beating Cancer, a little known non-profit organization in Orlando serving clients suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
Kids Beating Cancer founder Margaret Voight Guedes (whose nine-year-old son John died of leukemia in 1992) later hired Adele Doctor as director of programs, and she immediately befriended a young client who needed a bone marrow transplant. For one month the new director canvassed the African-American community searching for a marrow match for a sick little girl who reminded her of her own two daughters. The girl died without ever receiving a bone marrow match, which was the moment that catapulted Adele purposely toward a new career in which she would gain notoriety as 'the marrow lady.'
Eight years later: "There is a critical need for more African-Americans on the national marrow registry because it's more likely to match someone of your own heritage. The more African-Americans on the registry, the better the chances of finding the cure we need," emphasizes Adele, who says that Kids Beating Cancer is a 'well-kept secret' she wants to shamelessly publicize throughout the greater Orlando area.
It's no secret that the 51-year-old Winter Garden, Florida resident believes that the African-American community needs a wake-up call regarding marrow donation given the current low count of approximately 663,000 African-American registered donors. In her commitment to shed light on this important health issue, this professional woman facilitates bone marrow donor drives; gives speeches dismissing myths and fears about donor procedures; attends corporate luncheons to raise awareness; makes endless numbers of cold calls soliciting monetary donations; and, broadcasts throughout the community how bone marrow transplants can cure more than seventy-two diseases, including sickle cell anemia, which predominantly affects African-Americans.
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Kids Beating Cancer serves both children and adults who suffer from cancer, sickle cell anemia, leukemia, aplastic anemia and other related life-threatening blood diseases.
The organization assists with clients' uninsured medical expenses and offers various programs that support clients and their family members during the most emotionally challenging times of their medical dilemma.
On one hand, Adele admires the heroic efforts of clients who fight gallantly to stay alive despite myriad medical struggles. On the other hand, the marrow lady and Kids Beating Cancer epitomize the humanitarianism needed to help make a difference in the lives of people facing life and death situations.
The marrow lady attends funerals.
Adele recently attended the funeral of a three-year-old boy who died from cancer a few weeks after she delivered a teddy bear and blanket to his hospital bedside as part of the Kids Beating Cancer's Blanket Program.
"There are 8.5 million people on the registry, and only 7.8 percent are African-Americans. During the month of July, we will restart a committee of volunteers to help raise awareness of the need for more marrow donors on the registry," says the marrow lady.
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| Adele (l) and KBC founder Margaret Guedes (r) with two unidentified women. |
The organization assists with clients' uninsured medical expenses and offers various programs that support clients and their family members during the most emotionally challenging times of their medical dilemma.
On one hand, Adele admires the heroic efforts of clients who fight gallantly to stay alive despite myriad medical struggles. On the other hand, the marrow lady and Kids Beating Cancer epitomize the humanitarianism needed to help make a difference in the lives of people facing life and death situations.
The marrow lady attends funerals.
Adele recently attended the funeral of a three-year-old boy who died from cancer a few weeks after she delivered a teddy bear and blanket to his hospital bedside as part of the Kids Beating Cancer's Blanket Program.
The marrow lady supports clients.
A few years ago, Adele accompanied a young man who had aplastic anemia, his wife and their one-year-old son at radio appearances and donor drives while he implored African-Americans to join the registry. One December day he called Adele with good news that the registry found him a donor. Kids Beating Cancer provided financial support so that Patrick- a devoted husband, father and college student -could travel to Washington State for his bone marrow transplant.
A few years ago, Adele accompanied a young man who had aplastic anemia, his wife and their one-year-old son at radio appearances and donor drives while he implored African-Americans to join the registry. One December day he called Adele with good news that the registry found him a donor. Kids Beating Cancer provided financial support so that Patrick- a devoted husband, father and college student -could travel to Washington State for his bone marrow transplant.
The marrow lady waits patiently for a beautiful smile.
A shy little girl, who perched safely on her father's hip, neither smiled nor allowed Adele or anyone else to hold her. As the months advanced, familiarity painted a beautiful smile on her gorgeous face, and she welcomed Kids Beating Cancer staffers into her fragile world. Shanelle died last December at the age of seven from complications of sickle cell anemia, but not before her exciting modeling debut in the Kids Beating Cancer's American Girl Fashion Show two years ago.
The surest path is one dedicated to a greater cause.
"If I spend eight hours at a [bone marrow] drive and test only one person, that person may make a difference and give another person a second chance at life. It's so important that I keep doing what I'm doing. I'm committed in that way because someone's life may be depending on it," says Adele Doctor, affectionately known as 'the marrow lady.'
A shy little girl, who perched safely on her father's hip, neither smiled nor allowed Adele or anyone else to hold her. As the months advanced, familiarity painted a beautiful smile on her gorgeous face, and she welcomed Kids Beating Cancer staffers into her fragile world. Shanelle died last December at the age of seven from complications of sickle cell anemia, but not before her exciting modeling debut in the Kids Beating Cancer's American Girl Fashion Show two years ago.
The surest path is one dedicated to a greater cause.
"If I spend eight hours at a [bone marrow] drive and test only one person, that person may make a difference and give another person a second chance at life. It's so important that I keep doing what I'm doing. I'm committed in that way because someone's life may be depending on it," says Adele Doctor, affectionately known as 'the marrow lady.'
Want to Do Something Big? There is a critical need for marrow donors in the African-American community.
Contact Adele Doctor for more information.
Kids Beating Cancer
615 E. Princeton Street
Suite 400
Orlando, FL 32803
(407) 894-2888
WHAT'S COMING IN AUGUST
Meet five amazing women - (left to right) Wendy, Jennifer, Carolina, Jasmin and Lisa - who work at Westgate Resorts (Lake Ellenor center) in Orlando. They share similar and different experiences about building professional relationships with other women in the workplace, how they enjoy witnessing women succeed in their profession and so much more."I actually like seeing women in power just because I think it's a great thing."
-Carolina
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