Hey, folks.
So, for those of you (most of you, I suspect) who don’t know: My dad is one of the many folks who’s died of pancreatic cancer. He got diagnosed in August of 1999, and died the following February. Which is about a month later than we were expecting, once the diagnosis happened. The disease works pretty damn fast, is what I’m saying.
Anyway, it was almost 14 years ago, so I’m not deep in the grieving process at this point and, honestly, I know he turns up in spirit-form every so often (if not more frequently) to check up on me, so I know he’s not really “gone-gone”. It’s just that his body isn’t a physical one anymore.
One of my aunt’s brothers-in-law (I never knew him) also died from pancreatic cancer, about five or six years later. I wound up doing a CD for the funeral (three pieces: “Angel” and “I will Remember You” by Sarah McLachlin, plus an accapella rendition of “Amazing Grace”) so that I could sing at it long-distance.
What I’m saying is that my family is linked to pancreatic cancer in a fairly personal way.
And so now my mom works for Pancreatic Cancer Canada. A pretty decent place, by all accounts.
Anyway. Part of what PanCan Canada does is they raise money for (specifically pancreatic) cancer research. They do this in a bunch of ways, but one of them is through their “shop purple” store, which is part online shop[1] and part pop-up store (they bring their stuff to events, that sort of thing). The idea is that you buy the Purple Stuff (thus getting something concrete in exchange for your cancer research donation) and then, when people go “Where did you get that awesome ________________?” you can use it as a jumping off point to do some educational outreach and general awareness-raising about pancreatic cancer[2].
So, to get to the rather me-me-me point of this post: As you all know, I make jewelry.
I recently made a bunch of jewelry for Pancreatic Cancer Canada to sell in their shop. I do get paid for the pieces, but I’m donating my labour on these. According to Mom, each piece will go up on the site at a different time. Right now, the one they have up is this one:
Key to the Cure
Piece A
Seven pairs available, but that’s it.
8mm amethyst beads + surgical steel hooks and silver-tone findings.
1.75″ long, not including hooks. $20/pair.
Click on the picture to go to their shop.
As it says in the caption:
8mm amethyst beads + surgical steel hooks and silver-tone key-charms and findings.
1.75″ long, not including hooks. $20/pair.
Available from Pancreatic Cancer Canada.
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
[1] It’s not exactly an online shop. You can see what they have on the webpage, and then you have phone in what you’d like to order. I’m pretty sure it’s a project of theirs to update the “store” section so that you can just click and do an automatic check-out or similar. I hope that this happens, soon. 😉
[2] That’s one of the many, many things that I loathe about the whole “pink washing” thing. Stuff gets done or sold or bought ostensibly because it’s “raising awareness” about breast cancer but… It’s really not. There’s no coversation-starter built into, say, the pre-sliced mushrooms at the grocery store that come in the pink plastic tray rather than the blue one. At least my mom’s org does stuff to go along with what they’re selling. (Like their Purple Lights awareness campaign, that involved getting various municipal landmarks across Canada to light up in purple, complete with press-conferences, in conjuntion with selling purple LED outdoor fairy lights to people in their shop). Anyway. It’s a bit of a thing. Don’t mind me.
Urban Meliad 