Love

Happy Photo Friday and welcome to the Weekend!  I’ve completed another HcG test so now we’ll start the 2-3 week wait for results.  Thankfully that’s it for medical news.

But this week the Former Boyfriend and I celebrated our 21^st wedding anniversary.  We began at Open Sky Day Spa and finished the evening at one of my all time favorite restaurants http://www.trattoria-roma.com .  We had an amazing time and meal.  It was the perfect capper to a wonderful day.  I’m so grateful for my life my time with Johnny is so good, and so precious.  I don’t recall a sweeter anniversary celebration.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote “I love you not for whom you are, but who I am when I am by your side.”  Every day of my life with Johnny is the most precious gift.  I am grateful for so many things, including being here to celebrate.

And now for the rarely told story of Charlotte Haley and the little “Peach Ribbons.”  Charlotte was the creator of the first “breast cancer ribbon.” The documentary film Pink Ribbons, Inc. is her story in which she tells the overlooked tale of the first breast cancer awareness ribbon, which was not pink in color but peach.  In 1991, Charlotte began hand-making peach breast cancer ribbons in her dining room. To each packet of five ribbons she attached a postcard that read: “The National Cancer Institute’s annual budget is 1.8 billion, only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention.  Help us wake up legislators and America by wearing this ribbon.”  Her ribbons were a call to action: a demand for prevention of this disease and greater accountability.

Charlotte was strictly grassroots, handing the cards out at the local supermarket and writing to prominent women, everyone from former First Ladies to Dear Abby.  Her message spread by word of mouth.  By the time Self Magazine called asking if they could use her ribbons in their second annual “Breast Cancer Awareness” issue, Charlotte had distributed thousands and thousands of her peach colored ribbons for breast cancer prevention.

Alas, a marketing executive, Alexandra Penney, and Evelyn Lauder, of the Estee Lauder Company saw the financial potential of a ribbon branded to breast cancer.  The only problem-Charlotte told Self and Estee that she wouldn’t work with them-they were too corporate and commercial for her.  Lawyers quickly counseled that if the companies changed the color from peach to pink, permission to use Haley’s idea wasn’t necessary.

Charlotte died last year at the age of 91 at her home in California.  I’m sorry I didn’t know of her work while she was alive.  But I will make a point to honor her dedication and selfless action.  The world needs more Charlottes.