Yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered, host Audie Cornish took a look at one of the short documentaries up for an Oscar this year: Mondays At Racine. The film follows women who’ve recently been diagnosed with cancer starting when they come to a Long Island salon that offers free spa days for these patients.
In the NPR interview, director Cynthia Wade said, “Essentially, the heart of this movie isn’t just how people deal with the cancer, but how women who are dealing with their sense of beauty and self-worth.”
One of the women in the film said about the loss of her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes: “you feel like you’re being erased.”
Getting a cancer diagnosis can make a person feel alone and isolated, especially at first. That’s why the Girls Love Mail organization exists. It provides newly diagnosed breast cancer patients with a small lift in the form of hand written letters with words of encouragement.
This month we’ve all experienced how receiving a letter in the mail can have a transformative effect on your mood and outlook, whether the letter comes from someone you know or a stranger. You can now offer that same experience to someone facing a life changing battle.
I added a Girls Love Mail achievement for those of you who wish to participate. To do so, just go to the GLM homepage (where you’ll find more information, including how letters get delivered and suggestions on what your letter can say) and sign up on the right hand sidebar. Once you’ve sent your letter, head back here and report it to unlock the achievement.
thanks for adding this achievement! i wrote some letters through GLM earlier this month, and i loved it! it really embraces the power of a handwritten letter!
as a side note, have you thought of a vintage stamp achievement?
As timing would have it, we visited a vey dear friend yesterday who is recovering from a double mastectomy. Her cancer went undetected by a mammogram and was barely seen on an ultrasound, finally an MRI and a biopsy confirmed it.
She is in good spirits overall….she has a ways to go with recovery from the surgery and then will most likely do chemo. She shared many cards and letters with us yesterday, so I know firsthand, how much it will mean to someone, if people write.
Take care and thanks for thinking of this !
This sounds like an incredible organization. Thank you for sharing, Mary!
Do you know of many other mail-related charitable organizations or where those kind of links might be collected?
Tonight I bought some blank notecards which I decorated before writing my GLM letters. I told my mother about it tonight and she loved it. She’s a breast cancer survivor and was happy to hear about GLM.