commemorating my mother

My mother was an amazing woman. She was a pharmacist, with a BSc in Pharmacy from University of Toronto in the 1930s, with only a few other women in her class. She was a business woman, entrepreneur, involved in the Canadian Consumers' Association, drove a Karman Ghia convertible, and was working on a Real Estate License when she became ill with what turned out to be ovarian cancer.

She was 54 when she died, a year after being diagnosed. As a 17 year old, I was not prepared for my mother's demise. In fact, I didn't realize she was dying until a few weeks before she actually died. Up until then, I assumed she was just sick & would recover and come home. Almost a year in the hospital, she wasted away until even as a self-centred teen-ager, I could no longer avoid the inevitable truth. She was going to die.

When I look at the list of famous women who have died of ovarian cancer, the most obvious thing is how young they were when they died; mostly in their forties, fifties and early sixties. What does this do to families, whose main anchor is taken away? I know what happened to our family. It was very, very hard.

If I was in a position to create a foundation, it would be in the memory of my mother and other women like her: hard working, loving, energetic role-models for their children and those around them--and taken away half a century too soon.

Some day, I hope I can do this. Ovarian cancer is still the deadly silent killer, that destroys families by taking away mothers, wives, sisters.
What can we do to win this battle?