'The Greatest Gifts' for May VIE

“Our brains tend to run wild with stories all the time, even more so after a cancer diagnosis. The [first] surprise gift from the unknown sender was titled A Year to Live by Stephen Levine. Receiving the book out of the blue, between the time of the biopsy and the doctor’s calling to report on the result, served as a sharp wake-up call. Who sent this? Who cares? I considered the gift in the context of fantasy, my brain fuzzy with unwanted, unexpected news. Could this be a gift mystically organized by my deceased father and cousin’s spirits? Were they trying to tell me: ‘Pay attention! It’s time for you to do the things that matter to you, things we did not have time to do before our deaths from cancer’?”

Read more about three of the greatest gifts (all surprising in their own way) received by the Dean, when she needed them most, in the latest issue of VIE Magazine HERE.