Help for Rain
Donation protected
In April of this year, I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. I am fortunate to be in remission at this time. But a new friend of mine is not so fortunate.
I was contacted by a friend who asked if I wouldn’t mind reaching out to Rain, who was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. For those of you who will read this and who are not in a fight to save your life, it’s difficult to explain what happens and how you feel at a time like this. When you receive a diagnosis that basically tells you that there is something in your body that is going to kill you, you are flooded with emotions. And when you are alone or without a partner, it’s more devastating than you can imagine. I could relate to much of what Rain is experiencing and I wanted desperately to be someone she could lean on and who understands what she is going through. So, even though I didn’t know Rain, I was happy for the opportunity to connect with her.
So I am launching this fundraiser for someone that I don’t know on a personal level but with whom I share a similar story. But while I may not know her, she is not a stranger. To me, she is a sister who needs some help. Plain and simple.
One of the things I feel is critical when receiving a diagnosis that threatens your life is to decide whether or not you want to live. When you decide you want to live, you approach cancer with determination. When Rain reached out to me, she said something that I think many people with a cancer diagnosis can understand. She said that if she could just have a rest from worrying about food and rent and whether she can make it through another day at work or to the next paycheck, then she might have more fight in her. And I understand that when you are fighting this kind of fight, the idea that rest would come with death becomes more and more appealing. She is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from trying to survive and that makes it very easy to give up. She simply doesn’t have it in her and right now she is just trying to make ends meet without being able to focus fully on her healing. Her candidness about this is part of the reason I feel compelled to help her in any way I can.
What I have had the privilege of discovering is that Rain is an awesome young woman with her whole life ahead of her. She has been doing self-development and consciousness work her whole life and wants to use her life in a positive way. She is kind, compassionate and deeply interested in the human mind, heart and conscious journey. Her studies of different healing modalities make her feel strongly that she can use her knowledge to help heal her body. But survival needs and concerns are more consuming and leave her with little time, money or energy.
I have also learned that Rain has had some unspeakable experiences in her life, including multiple brain injuries and miscarriages, anorexia, bulimia, and domestic violence, among others, but she has survived them all and come out stronger because of them. Now she is standing at the doorway to a challenge that she was not prepared for and that will take everything she has to win.
I am at an incredible place in my own healing journey, but I could not have done it if people, friends, family and strangers alike had not rallied to my financial aid. It truly saved me. It gave me an opportunity to focus on me. To rest and to heal. So I am now paying it forward by launching this fundraiser on her behalf. When I mentioned to her that I would like to start a fundraiser for her, she said that she had thought about it and that she felt so much shame in asking others for help. It’s really a difficult thing to admit that you need help and even more difficult to ask for it. But I believe there are so many good, loving, kind and generous people out there who would be willing to help her. I will never stop believing in the goodness of mankind.
From my continued conversations with Rain, I know that she feels blessed in so many ways, and she truly feels that she has something special to offer this world. I couldn’t agree more. She also has many people who love her and family and friends who cannot imagine a world without her in it.
And while she and I were strangers only weeks ago, she is now someone I can call a friend, and she needs our help, however small. Please donate if you can and share this message far and wide with others who might be willing to support her plight.
Rain’s personal message of gratitude is that every person who helps her will travel as a part of her and be in every conscious decision she makes. She wants to use her life for good. She will not squander any opportunity she is given at life.
With love and gratitude,
Danielle
I was contacted by a friend who asked if I wouldn’t mind reaching out to Rain, who was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. For those of you who will read this and who are not in a fight to save your life, it’s difficult to explain what happens and how you feel at a time like this. When you receive a diagnosis that basically tells you that there is something in your body that is going to kill you, you are flooded with emotions. And when you are alone or without a partner, it’s more devastating than you can imagine. I could relate to much of what Rain is experiencing and I wanted desperately to be someone she could lean on and who understands what she is going through. So, even though I didn’t know Rain, I was happy for the opportunity to connect with her.
So I am launching this fundraiser for someone that I don’t know on a personal level but with whom I share a similar story. But while I may not know her, she is not a stranger. To me, she is a sister who needs some help. Plain and simple.
One of the things I feel is critical when receiving a diagnosis that threatens your life is to decide whether or not you want to live. When you decide you want to live, you approach cancer with determination. When Rain reached out to me, she said something that I think many people with a cancer diagnosis can understand. She said that if she could just have a rest from worrying about food and rent and whether she can make it through another day at work or to the next paycheck, then she might have more fight in her. And I understand that when you are fighting this kind of fight, the idea that rest would come with death becomes more and more appealing. She is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from trying to survive and that makes it very easy to give up. She simply doesn’t have it in her and right now she is just trying to make ends meet without being able to focus fully on her healing. Her candidness about this is part of the reason I feel compelled to help her in any way I can.
What I have had the privilege of discovering is that Rain is an awesome young woman with her whole life ahead of her. She has been doing self-development and consciousness work her whole life and wants to use her life in a positive way. She is kind, compassionate and deeply interested in the human mind, heart and conscious journey. Her studies of different healing modalities make her feel strongly that she can use her knowledge to help heal her body. But survival needs and concerns are more consuming and leave her with little time, money or energy.
I have also learned that Rain has had some unspeakable experiences in her life, including multiple brain injuries and miscarriages, anorexia, bulimia, and domestic violence, among others, but she has survived them all and come out stronger because of them. Now she is standing at the doorway to a challenge that she was not prepared for and that will take everything she has to win.
I am at an incredible place in my own healing journey, but I could not have done it if people, friends, family and strangers alike had not rallied to my financial aid. It truly saved me. It gave me an opportunity to focus on me. To rest and to heal. So I am now paying it forward by launching this fundraiser on her behalf. When I mentioned to her that I would like to start a fundraiser for her, she said that she had thought about it and that she felt so much shame in asking others for help. It’s really a difficult thing to admit that you need help and even more difficult to ask for it. But I believe there are so many good, loving, kind and generous people out there who would be willing to help her. I will never stop believing in the goodness of mankind.
From my continued conversations with Rain, I know that she feels blessed in so many ways, and she truly feels that she has something special to offer this world. I couldn’t agree more. She also has many people who love her and family and friends who cannot imagine a world without her in it.
And while she and I were strangers only weeks ago, she is now someone I can call a friend, and she needs our help, however small. Please donate if you can and share this message far and wide with others who might be willing to support her plight.
Rain’s personal message of gratitude is that every person who helps her will travel as a part of her and be in every conscious decision she makes. She wants to use her life for good. She will not squander any opportunity she is given at life.
With love and gratitude,
Danielle
Organizer
Danielle Smit
Organizer
Albuquerque, NM
