Pat Garcia-Gonzalez, Chef Executive Officer at The Max Foundation, shared on LinkedIn:
“Max’s Day is a reminder of all that is good in the world. We established The Max Foundation almost 30 years ago, in the memory of Max, and October 19th is the anniversary of Max’s birthday, a day I am honored to call Max’s Day.
This is a day when we celebrate not only Max’s life, but the lives of thousands of people around the world who were touched by cancer and who stand up to help others despite the challenges in their own lives. When I look at our work and impact, what I am most proud of is that, from day one, The Max Foundation has been a global network of people helping people; it’s a network that grows every year and has become a powerful reminder of what is good in the world.
For me, celebrating life on this day is a choice. Making this choice feels like a small but powerful way to defeat the wrath of cancer. Cancer takes away so much: our dignity, our dreams, many times our lives, and immediately our agency. I have been reflecting lately on the importance of having agency – meaning the ability to make our own choices and take action to influence what happens in our lives. As cancer advocates, I want to make sure we do not contribute to taking it away from those we aim to support. For example, my team lovingly refers to patients as our patients, and in loving them, sometimes to protect them, we may find ourselves making decisions for them.
Every day I talk to people about patients, what they need, what they want, how to protect them, and how to help them. Social media, and media in general, is full of perspectives of those who care for patients, members of the global oncology community; but the voice we seldom hear is the voice of the individual, the person living with a cancer diagnosis, especially of those who urgently need help today.
As someone who receives daily messages from people who need help, I can share that there is nothing as powerful as the voice of those who need us to see them and help them today. Their humanity and their goodness shine through their words. In fact, it is so powerful that perhaps it can be uncomfortable, thus some might feel the world is not prepared to hear this voice.
- But what if we let each person decide if they want the world to hear them?
- What if they decide what they want to tell us?
- And what if we build a megaphone for patients to speak to the world and, in so doing, we restore some agency back to them?
On this day of celebration of life, I invite us to honor the lives of those in all corners of the world who are shouting for help, hoping we will embrace their humanity. I urge us to have the courage to hear their voices, and in so doing restore a small piece of their agency.
Happy birthday, Max. Forever in our hearts.”
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