Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer
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Suzy and Nancy Goodman were more than sisters. They were best friends, confidantes, and partners in the grand adventure of life. For three decades, nothing could separate them. Not college, not marriage, not miles. Then Suzy got sick. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1977; three agonizing years later, at thirty-six, she died.It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Goodman girls were raised in postwar Peoria, Illinois, by parents who believed that small acts of charity could change the world. Suzy was the big sister—the homecoming queen with an infectious enthusiasm and a generous heart. Nancy was the little sister—the tomboy with an outsized sense of justice who wanted to right all wrongs. The sisters shared makeup tips, dating secrets, plans for glamorous fantasy careers. They spent one memorable summer in Europe discovering a big world far from Peoria. They imagined a long life together—one in which they’d grow old together surrounded by children and grandchildren. Suzy’s diagnosis shattered that dream.In 1977, breast cancer was still shrouded in stigma and shame. Nobody talked about early detection and mammograms. Nobody could even say the words “breast” and “cancer” together in polite company, let alone on television news broadcasts. With Nancy at her side, Suzy endured the many indignities of cancer treatment, from the grim, soul-killing waiting rooms to the mistakes of well-meaning but misinformed doctors. That’s when Suzy began to ask Nancy to promise. To promise to end the silence. To promise to raise money for scientific research. To promise to one day cure breast cancer for good. Big, shoot-for-the-moon promises that Nancy never dreamed she could fulfill. But she promised because this was her beloved sister. I promise, Suzy. . . . Even if it takes the rest of my life.Suzy’s death—both shocking and senseless—created a deep pain in Nancy that never fully went away. But she soon found a useful outlet for her grief and outrage. Armed only with a shoebox filled with the names of potential donors, Nancy put her formidable fund-raising talents to work and quickly discovered a groundswell of grassroots support. She was aided in her mission by the loving tutelage of her husband, restaurant magnate Norman Brinker, whose dynamic approach to entrepreneurship became Nancy’s model for running her foundation. Her account of how she and Norman met, fell in love, and managed to achieve the elusive “true marriage of equals” is one of the great grown-up love stories among recent memoirs. Nancy’s mission to change the way the world talked about and treated breast cancer took on added urgency when she was herself diagnosed with the disease in 1984, a terrifying chapter in her life that she had long feared. Unlike her sister, Nancy survived and went on to make Susan G. Komen for the Cure into the most influential health charity in the country and arguably the world. A pioneering force in cause-related marketing, SGK turned the pink ribbon into a symbol of hope everywhere. Each year, millions of people worldwide take part in SGK Race for the Cure events. And thanks to the more than $1.5 billion spent by SGK for cutting-edge research and community programs, a breast cancer diagnosis today is no longer a death sentence. In fact, in the time since Suzy’s death, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer has risen from 74 percent to 98 percent.Promise Me is a deeply moving story of family and sisterhood, the dramatic “30,000-foot view” of the democratization of a disease, and a soaring affirmative to the question: Can one person truly make a difference? The Washington Post - Nora Krug Brinker is more than a little proud of her own moxie…and the book is as much an ode to her own chutzpah and accomplishments as it is a compelling tale of living with cancer&#$8230;For those of us who have watched loved ones endure the disease, Brinker's chutzpah on our behalf is much appreciated.
Note from the AuthorNote from the CoauthorI SUZY 11 Where Will Meets Way 3A Brief History of the Beast 122 Founder Effect 17The Storyteller's Mastectomy 313 The Goodman Girls 37Little Pearl Harbor 494 Women of the World 54Forever Blonde 765 May Queen at Neiman Marcus 82Cents and Sensibility 986 We All Fall Down 103Mystery and Method 1167 Wake Up, Little Suzy 121Semper Pink 1308 Make It Last 135II EVOLUTION 1539 A Seal Upon Thy Heart 155When You Hear Hoofbeats 16610 Flying into Love 173Love and Other Cannonballs 18411 Outside the Box 188I Hope You Dance 20112 Follow the Leader 205The First Lady 21213 Run the Good Race 217Living one Step Ahead 23114 Purpose in Perspective 237Love Will Find A way 24615 To Market, To Market 252From Point a to Point B 27016 My Kingdom for a Horse 275III REVOLUTION 29517 Bridge of Light 297Higher Learning 30918 Pride and Protocol 314Where we Aren't, Where we are, and Where we want to be 32519 Promise Me 334Breast Cancer Timeline 337Resources for Families Dealing with Breast Cancer 343
