More breath. Sooki, bareheaded, her silver earrings dangling down her neck. But my eye keeps going to her. Entire countries have lost their distinctive smell, The Wests industrial-sized chicken farms could be as dangerous as any wet market. And I think that that's the best thing we can possibly do." At Harper 's Ann Patchett spins the tale of her unexpected and deep friendship with Sooki Raphael who worked as a personal assistant to Tom Hanks: "Come on, Sooki," [Hanks] said, his voice gone grand. I can write an entire novel without showing a page of it to anyone. You should have planned for the financial fallout of having pancreatic cancer twice?. In the titular essay, Patchett reflects on her serendipitous friendship with Sooki Raphael. I wouldnt be on the same floor of the house.. She had said almost nothing and yet my eye kept going to her, the way ones eye goes to the flash of iridescence on a hummingbirds throat. No events scheduled for January 22, 2023. And when I was young, the two things that were unbelievably expensive were long-distance phone calls and plane tickets. Sparky Considers a Squirrel, Nashville 2020. And we were living exactly in the moment. Winter came without a word. When she gave us the painting she had done of Sparky on the back of the couch, I felt as if Matisse had painted our dog. We talked about art. Something happened to it while I was in the shower., She shook her head. But our truest means of communication arrived in the form of old yoga DVDs. The artist said that the painting was a respectable copy from 1899 and sold for 25 francs (about $2,574 today). One of the last things I understand when Im putting a novel together is the structure of time. So what are the deadlines, days needed, etc? I wrote and she painted and then we made dinner. I think well be back tomorrow. This was what marriage must look like from the other side. We talked about singing and touring and about the Opry. So all the other girls went home. But a few months later, I got an email from Tom Hanks early in the morning. This unfolds in your college dorm freshman year. . There was my grandmother, my father. Ive had a happy life because of her.. Our house was a holding pattern, a neutral space without expectation where all that mattered was her recovery. And who wouldnt be so blown away given the fact that Raphael didnt really emerge as an artist until her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in November 2018. It's essays. I want to envision it as a healing room, but it reminds me of a meat locker: freezing coldIm guessing the temperature favors the delicate machinerywith a rack of blue torsos lined up on hooks. But of course the thing to do would be to go, wouldnt it? Sooki hadnt lost weight but she was losing her ability to project her voice. I was copied on a barrage of emails I had no business reading, reports of molecular profiling, adenocarcinoma, tumor tissue for genetic analysis. Karl and the dog went out on the front porch to read the newspaper. Called These Precious Days(Harper, 320 pp., out of four, out Tuesday) after a line from the pop standard September Song, memorably recorded by another Nashville legend, Willie Nelson, the essay lends its melancholy title to a new collection of essays by one of Americas premier writers. And what about the women who cleaned that house, who fixed those children their dinner? She traveled the world as the personal assistant to one of Hollywoods biggest stars. My reading on this flight is a book called Radical Remission. And that was so sweet, but what it meant was I couldn't go home for Thanksgiving. We shined them into the beds of purple iris that stood tall and straight, untouched. There was an abstract image, and it was clearly younot in a physical way, but as a soul. God damn it, get inside, I said to my husband. Parents, siblings and children of someone with pancreatic cancer are considered high risk for developing the disease because they are first-degree relatives of the individual. I went to Virginia to see my friend Rene Fleming in concert. We have come to the point in this story when time changes. Two words I kept trying to bring up as I convulsed on the bathroom floor. I caught an early flight home. I asked him how he would feel about my extending an invitation to stay. Who is she? There she was in the passenger seat, a shy person with a quiet voice. A car was coming to pick them up. Those she won. Forget about the heartfelt letters. From her patio, she could watch the planes take off and land. People die of this.. Patchett, co-owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, has an essay collection revolving around the story of her friendship with Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks's assistant. They were flying out at the end of May. The treatments left her tired, but she was managing. You decide. We laughed at the simple optimism but we also caught ourselves listening. I wouldnt have had this time with you and Karl. She was disappointed. Susan Joan "Sooki" Raphael of Topanga, CA passed peacefully on April 25th surrounded by friends, family, color, light, joy, and love. I woke up the dog and the three of us left in the darkness. And the only time I ever feel paranoid about death is when I'm in the middle of a novel because I don't want the novel to die. I wanted to call and tell her how it had all turned out. Such a beautiful coat, I said to her. Im not sure I can describe it without it sounding like an extension of the mushrooms, but it had that kind of depth and clarity of message for me. She walked to the hospital for chemo and then walked home. Karl worked out the plans. It seemed we had just driven through the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus. I felt their love for me. Sooki and I kept up a sporadic email exchange once the audiobook was done. Why shouldnt I read one? Heres how the story came about: Patchett was invited to interview Hanks while he was on a book tour. When it. The essays, even when they are nominally about something else, are about the weight and grief of relationships: with her father and two stepfathers, her best friend, her husband and, improbably, actor Tom Hanks' assistant, a woman named Sooki with whom Patchett develops a deep bond. They reviewed her records together. UCLA had plans to start the same clinical trial that was up and running in Nashville, but not for another month or two, a unit of time that could not be lost to waiting. Moving Forward after Losing a Loved One to Cancer. It was her only chance of getting back safely anytime soon. She asked whether that was cheating and was told not to worry about it. But for you, there was also a vapor that would come in and fill in any gap that was left in the process, and I realized, Oh, this is what is special here and so essentially Ann. There was a completeness. The paintings came from a landscape of dreams, pattern on pattern, impossible colors leaning into one another. Rene Fleming spent two years in Germany studying voice while she was in her twenties. Sooki, I found out, was sixty-four. So, I was surprised on my first scheduled day of radiation to have another technician pop in with a red sharpie to make three large xs near the tattoos as additional points of reference and stick clear round stickers over them. It turned out to be more or less the truth. You explain it in the opening chapter. Why couldnt she see that? She had made up her mind that it was going to be okay. What came out of her brush was a feast of colors and stories that she had kept in her heart for years. And I found maybe five other kids who had done the same thing and decided that I was going to make Thanksgiving dinner. It has been an exercise in creative storytelling to try to think up more and more reasons why the number might rise while the scans (CTs! The energy it took to stay alive, the impossibility of quitting. But I cant just live with you and Karl for the rest of my life.. In a previous interview with SurvivorNet,Dr. Anirban Maitra, the co-leader of the Pancreatic Cancer Moon Shot at MD Anderson Cancer Center, explains what he typically sees when patients develop this disease. Mine was the sin of misunderstanding, of thinking that a clinical trial was the point of the story. She went inside to see for herself. Karl went to talk to the pilots about the plane and Sooki and I sat in the little waiting area. Everyone was laughing at his jokes because his jokes were funny. Or maybe it wasnt as bad as that. I worked at the Bronx Zoo during school and then I did the whole bat thing. Karl, being Karl, took the officer around the corner to explain the situation. There was a delicacy about her that was well-suited to baldness. In Tan-Tan there was no electricity at night, either. Use this bar to access information about the steps in your cancer journey. It had zero spiritual component. They cant do the Stanford biopsy here? You have to remember.. On this visit, we sat in the cramped office at my bookstore and talked about the one he was considering opening in Santa Monica while my dog slept in his lap. The Amazing Rita Wilsons New Film About Choosing Life; How She Beat Cancer & Became A Songwriter, Hot, Sweaty And Itchy Feeling Turns Out To Be Cancer For 42-Year-Old Man When To Seek Help, 54-Year-Olds Misdiagnosed Muscles Spasms In Shoulder Turn Out To Be Pancreatic Cancer, Apples Steve Jobs Was Trying To Accept Powerlessness & His Place In The Universe The Newly Revealed Email To Himself. Heres to more time to explore color and enjoy all the peoplelike youwho make life colorful. I studied what did not come naturally, she told me. feb. 7, 2020: When last we typed you were on your way to Stanford for a second opinion. She was an artist. Was this what COVID-19 felt like? It had been more than two years since I met Sooki in a theater in Washington. We knew it. It was now or never. But after years of infections, she decided to remove her implants and go flat. Her artwork reflects a deeply personal exploration of body image and sexuality. Need to create a login? And we had the most amazing time. I want to meet Tom Hanks, she said. Their close friendship began through email, and would eventually lead to Patchett offering her home to Raphael in early 2020 so she could receive cancer treatment in Nashville. We put on the music, the eye masks, covered up. Were just reading. She was supposed to wear a complicated Velcro gel pack (unfortunately called a penguin cap) on her head on the days she had chemo. View Sooki Raphael's business profile as TH Assistant at Playtone. 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There was a bottle of water, a blue glass by the sink. But the doctors say, as they expected, the cancer is back, and they are ready to start up chemo again. We started looking up articles on the Johns Hopkins website. There was work to do. For a time, the mother in this novel went to India to work for Mother Teresa. The waiter came out and told us to get back inside. My childhood best friend was staying with us while this discussion was going on. Asked to endorse Hankss short story collection,Uncommon Type, and then to interview him on stage during his tour, Patchett first meets Sooki in the wings of a Washington theater. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year after we met. In return, she sent me pictures shed taken of Los Angeles, a woman in an orange sari sailing past a city bus on a bicycle. I had thought this was a story about Tom Hanks, the friendly actor-writer who had recorded my book, but I was mistaken. It has to do with fearing death. She started a kids clothing business. Thats an important distinction and I encourage anybody who goes through this journey as a caregiver and then has to face loss, to think very carefully about how to move forward.. No doubt if Tom Hanks and Ann Patchett believe their friend to possess such wonderful qualities, she probably is a saint. When we turned out the light that night I felt myself buzzing with happiness: After nearly three months of lockdown, we were going to have an adventure. He describes her as "someone who is all that is good in the world.". Recurrent pancreatic cancer kept me focused on the present moment. Ann Patchett one night happened to read a short story by the actor Tom Hanks, surprised by its literary quality. . As it turned out, Sooki and I needed the same thing: to find someone who could see us as our best and most complete selves. It's clear this was hard to write about when you turned to actually try to capture Sooki in an essay. The risk was too high. Pay We both wrote for the New York Times. Want to change your email address or password? Can empty houses help solve homelessness? She was welcome. Things can get very confused. I didnt say, Your death. And even when youre in the middle of it you can still get up and go to the bathroom. And this led to you meeting Sooki. Sookie paints and paints and paints. And despite the fact that cancer has essentially been her whole life, Cuozzo has recognized herself as a lot more than a diagnosis by focusing on her life as a mother and an artist. That at home she felt responsible for overseeing every aspect of her treatment, researching cures, double-checking medical ordersshe had caught a few harrowing errors along the way, near missesbut here she knew that Dr.Bendell and Karl always had their eyes on her. UCLA would fold her into their trial, everything seamless. She needed me to take her to the hospital for an X-ray. Subscribe to the World edition here. Once Im there for chemo, I will find a place where I wont be worried about being a good houseguest. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Ann Patchett about her latest collection of essays, These Precious Days, and how she ended up quarantining with Tom Hanks' personal assistant. Didnt he know? Most recently, she had a solo exhibition of paintings at ROSEGALLERY called These Precious Days, just like Patchetts piece. We did up dog and down dog in endless repetition. Surely there would be a story there for one of us. Patchett's long and twisting memoir/essay "These Precious Days" relates how Patchett's professional connection . I said, I have access to every article of clothing I own and I couldnt pull myself together to look as good as you do going to chemo.. Sooki let my friends with the plane know that she would be there on Thursday. She was the magnet in the compass. Its like a Nol Coward play but not as witty. Sooki, the middle daughter. I hadnt meant this to be my career. The road forks and forks again. Ken will like it here, too. A few more pages would send me off to sleep, so I went in search of a short story. Jennie and I walked our dogs together after dinner, and Sooki came with us most nights, unless she had a phone call to return, unless she wasnt feeling up to it. I was struck by an overwhelming sense of wanting to know her, of not wanting to miss Sooki while she was here. Would you just paint us a picture of her? She had worked for Tom for almost twenty years, and part of her responsibility was to go out on location before he arrived, find a place to stay in Morocco, get a driver, figure out the food, figure out what there was to see if there was any time, which usually there wasnt. I saw her as an artist. As the co-owner of a bookstore, I do this sort of thing, and while I mostly do it in Nashville, where I live, there have certainly been requests interesting enough to get me on a plane. Anything thats happened to me, any adversity, any good times, any bad times, Ive always kind of stood on that rock of faith. She seems very nice, Karl said once we were in the kitchen. I had just finished my latest novel, and on a lark of the highest order, I sent him an email asking if he might record the audiobook. Accuracy and availability may vary. She became interested in urban animals. The grass was still brown and only a handful of the thousands of bulbs had opened. Or its supposed to slow it down. She hadnt lost her hair on FOLFIRINOX, though shed lost her sense of taste and smell, the feeling in her feet and hands, and twenty pounds. Raphael passed peacefully on April 25. Precision seemed like a good decision here. After her first round of cancer, while she recovered from the Whipple and endured the FOLFIRINOX, she started to paint like someone who had never stopped. This wasnt out of the ordinary for me, as Im sure it wasnt for her. Or I should say the boundaries you think are there tend to fall away. I had interviews scheduled all day on Tuesday, Sooki had chemo on Wednesday, and my friends were leaving for California on Thursday. On the first Sunday in May, in the late afternoon, a storm kicked up, not expected but not a surprise either. The assistant was a tiny woman wearing a fitted black-velvet evening coat embroidered with saucer-size peonies. Where I was going was death. Most recently, she had a solo exhibition of paintings at ROSEGALLERY called These Precious Days, just like Patchetts title essay. I lost her for a while, and then she was back again. Wed stood together in the dark of a Washington theater for a matter of minutes a year and a half earlier. That was how I saw the coronavirusas something that could kill Sooki. He already knew. Given Patchetts astonishing gifts as a storyteller, others embraced it but with reservations. Sooki had come to our house thinking shed be staying with someone who was gone half the time and busy the other half of the time. What was the line of childrens clothing called? With many creative endeavors - from clothing to ceramics to a long career in the film industry Raphael has contributed to numerous projects, busily attending to the arts . He wanted to know why I hadnt told him this. What about your sisters? I asked. Then youd have to park. Register, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilsons Assistant Died of Pancreatic Cancer. One night after wed finished our yoga and meditation, we were lying on our mats, staring up at the ceiling. A writers life is by definition one of solitude, but Patchett, perhaps more than others, appears determined to wrest incident out of the random details of her busy life as an A-list writer and advocate for independent bookstores. Being Karl, took the officer around the corner to explain the situation it while I in! 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