Think Pinker

Reach out with a helping hand

In considering the topic for this post, I was drawn to this articleabout Darren Clarke, a 2006 member of the English Ryder Cup team, reaching out to encourage Phil Mikelson and wife Amy after hearing about her diagnosis of breast cancer. Clarke is merely returning a favor to this couple because they were there for him when his own wife died of breast cancer in 2006.

I’m sure everyone is glad to see people line up to support this couple through their trying time, but the issue is even bigger than one couple. When a celebrity gets cancer, the world hears about it, but if it is Aunt Mary down the street, no one hears her story. Some may be tempted to dismiss the trials of celebrities because average folks have to deal with things like breast cancer every day.

But it is important to keep these kinds of articles in the news because it gets the message out there that anyone can get breast cancer and everyone needs to do everything in their own power to prevent it. So if one person gets a mammogram or visits her doctor after reading about Amy, then her suffering is not in vain.