This is an amazing video.
It is about the life of Angelo and Jennifer Merendino.
Initially, they a lived a fairy tale life, until she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
You can see in the video the brutal transformation Jennifer underwent from the disease.
Yet, the love and togetherness this couple maintained is inspiring.
A link with photos of this couple's battle with cancer is here.
Jennifer died on December 22, 2011 at the young age of 40.
Angelo, a NY photographer compiled their painstaking journey in a book called The Battle We Didn't Choose available at their website My Wife's Fight With Breast Cancer.
It is difficult to look at the pictures of Jennifer's illness and deterioration, especially when marked in contrast to her husband throughout.
The numerous personal pictures makes me feel a little uncomfortable, even as I believe, they are meant to be educational and giving--with 1/2 the proceeds from the book's profits to be going to a non-profit for breast cancer victims.
The story is very tragic, yet too often repeated throughout society...some may be able to find hope in it, and to appreciate what we have, when we have it.
Cancer Takes It Away
Some people are so needy--they are almost like children in adult's clothing, while others are so distant they may as well be living on another planet--they are in there own world.
The Wall Street Journal (15 July 2013) asks why some people seem to demand so much?
It explains that there are three types of people:
1) Secure--these people were raised in a consistently caring and responsive manner and they become warm and loving people themselves able to form healthy balanced relationships--where they can be apart from and together with others and function well in both situations.
2) Avoidant/Dismissive--those who are raised in an environment where neediness was not tolerated and was seen as suffocating, and so they learn to minimize closeness to others--they are distant and detached.
3) Anxious/Needy--People raised in an inconsistent environment, where they got mixed messages about nurturing, and they end up constantly feeling insecure and needy, like they will get drawn in and then rejected again, so they smother other people with their neediness and don't recognize and respect appropriate boundaries.
This third personality type, who is always needy and ends up pushing away other people, who feel suffocated, reminds me of a funny scene in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" where a couple visit the therapist, who asks each of them how often they have sex? The man says, "Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week." But then the woman when asked the same question says, "Constantly. I'd say three times a week."
Just like people can't really change their basic sexual needs (men apparently wanting physical intimacy more often then women), so too people can't change the home life they were raised in--good, bad or indifferent.
Whether people are needy and clingy, aloof and dismissive, or plays between hot and cold, we need to figure out how to care about and love them for whoever they are.
Boundaries are key. Taking some personal space is healthy. Together time and intimacy is critical.
It's all about finding a balance--where each person has the time and space to be who they are, and then come back to a warm and caring relationship to share, rejuvenate, and laugh and cry together. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Needy And You Know It
I just love this family of geese crossing the street together.
Children first.
Father and mother bringing up the rear.
Everyone look both ways and be careful when you cross.
Waddle, waddle.
Why did the geese cross the road--family gotta stick together. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
That's Family
