Real Men wear Pink in October !!

Excuse me Guys!! It is November now...and I know I should have posted this long time back. Any way, you know there is no stopping me when I have something in my mind .. Well, Thats me!! Take me for being pretty 'difficult' ...but still,  understand that nobody is 'difficult' but rather 'different' ???  Ha Ha...

Well, now ..Its going to be a little serious ... For those of you who are not aware of the cancer campaigns and stuff associated with it.....Hope you ve heard about cancer ribbons and that each month is dedicated to a particular type of cancer... like for instance, a gold ribbon stands for childhood cancer and the month of September would be dedicated to childhood cancer awareness campaigns every year....

The same goes for every month...

  

visit www.cancerindia.in for more details on cancer ribbons

The color Pink is supposed to be girlish and feminine.....And I suppose men dont wear pink ???  Think about a man wearing a PINK JEANS OR A DARK PINK SHIRT...you'd call him a freak or a junkie even.....

But PINK…. in the World of Cancer , has great importance cos it stands for Breast Cancer and the month of October is dedicated to this issue...

Cancer campaigners and volunteers all over the world wear pink when they turn up for campaigns or volunteer activities regardless of whether they are men or women......





Now, this is not the main issue here….Last month I got a mail from one of my friends in New York who is an active voluntary social worker but one who works in the administrative section in one of the biggest companies there.

He had gone through very difficult times when his mother whom he loved very much had suffered from breast cancer which was diagnosed in the worst stage and the lady had sadly refused to go in for treatment and finally had the most painful death possible….

 So this guy made it a point to wear a pink ribbon on his suit everyday during October...and also pink shirts and pink handkerchiefs whenever he could ....Not to mention the sly looks and snide remarks of his colleagues who would tease him for his improper dressing !! ....

But everytime someone teased him, he would make it a point to explain to them why he wore it. He says he took real pains to explain ...and most of the time it would be quite embarrassing….but he still did it , cos he felt that his actions would speak more than just words ....

And... as he was using himself as a tool for this awareness program, he felt so happy doing it  ...Well,  I would say that this was the best awareness campaign possible…

Now to give the chills to my male readers ...

I suppose you know that the number of men having breast cancer is on the rise. An estimated 10 percent of the world breast cancer population is men, which is supposed to increase again according to recent statistics....





Now I suppose you guys would agree to my statement that Real Men do wear Pink in October ? Or shall we say ....we need to change the color of the October Ribbon to pink and blue cos it is not just women who suffer but men too …… Anyway , we do have such a ribbon now !!

For more reference on cancer ribbons do feel free to visit my website on cancer : 
www.cancerindia.in

Gunshot from Heaven..

 


When the early morning phone call woke me up, I was groping in the dark trying to find my mobile phone. The pink device had slipped out of my hands while I slumbered into deep sleep… Ronan Keating's   song “You say it best when you say nothing at all “ came floating from my mobile phone ...It was my favourite song and I had set it as my ring tone... but now it sounded eerie along with the light which flickered from the device !!


The frantic sound of my friend could be heard on the other end….Jess is very sick !! Could you talk to her now ? She wants to speak to you ! I fumbled in the dark , trying to get to Jess as soon as I could..Jess was in the hospital. They had found cancer.  It was in the worst stage.  I could hear sobs at the other end. She was one of my real good friends..


I tried best to console her but pretty much failed as miserably as I could. Even as I tried to be encouraging, I could find myself whimpering. The words that came out of my rambling mouth were not the least adequate. I knew that this could never be made alright.


Well.. It was the worst thing to happen to a 29 year old..
The least I could do was to ask her to call me anytime, if she needed to vent and get it all out .  I was not sure how much that could have helped Jess, but I heard myself telling her.... I’ll be there for you, in case you need me....


The whole situation was pathetic….unfair.  And there was nothing anyone could do....


I really do wonder why all this happens to people. And it gets too difficult when it is someone whom you really love.  Jess was a very sweet person who had every right to enjoy life like all of us... She was a wife who was the world to her partner …a mother without whom her 8 year old girl could never survive...This should be the very best years of a woman’s life. And she was going to lose everything.....


And finally, the gun shots came in …out of nowhere....Without warning… Hitting harder than anything that had ever hit before....


Jess passed away … it was all too bad …..So unreal..…


We dont understand how much someone means to us until we lose them. I don’t even know if I had really expressed enough to tell Jess how much I cared for her..How much she meant to me…


I keep wondering ... why we dont care to express how much we feel for our family, friends... everyone whom we care  …who they are in our life... I dont know if we really tell them we do love them all so very much...  Tell them we appreciate all that they do for us and how much they mean to us ...Thank them enough for everything that they are in our life....I suppose it is alright even if we are annoying them about it,


But really... We have no idea when the gun shots would come from heaven !!
 




JennyPadua,Nagercoil,TamilNadu,India,JeniPadua