Karl had gone back to work by this point, but he canceled his afternoon appointments to drive us to the hangar where my friends kept their plane. A weekly email taking aim at the relentless absurdity of the 24-hour news cycle. But wasnt there also a scenario in which she didnt die? That led to Patchett's friendship with Sooki Raphael, Hanks' assistant, and Patchett inviting Raphael to live in her home in Nashville while undergoing cancer treatment. Id written a childrens book and was about to go on tour. Pay attention, I told myself. I did a Pilates DVD we never got around to. I pushed my face into his shoulder, apologizing. I didnt see how it could hurt to ask. But the only information I had was in the book. The water in the creek a block away skimmed the bottom of the footbridge. We laughed at ourselves, at the practice, at the voice that told us we were flowers, we were leopards, but we didnt stop. I could see what the cancers given me. In fact we were so exactly in the middle of history that we had no way of understanding what we were seeing. No events scheduled for January 16, 2023. Did you have a hard time?. I didnt know how the story would end. If I knew nothing about Sooki before she arrived, I knew very little more three weeks later when we were spending all of our days together. Its so amazingly generous of Karl, she whispered uncertainly. may 21, 2019: Thank you for your concern about my medical procedure. I wanted to know what her worst fear about staying here was, and after a pause she told me she was a vegetarian. When youre young youre getting high, and when youre old youre using plant medicine, like herbal insect repellent. More breath. The four frozen caps were to be stored in a cooler filled with fifty pounds of dry ice. Can empty houses help solve homelessness? She was supposed to lug this cooler with her to the hospital every week. Once a pilot, always a pilot. What Sooki is, Tom wrote to me in an email later, is all that is good in the world.. But months later there he was again. I didnt know how old she was, I couldnt remember her face, but there have been few moments in my life when I have felt so certain: I was supposed to help. No one had ever been so welcome. She had been in the house for only a few minutes; there hadnt been enough time to lose anything. I have to know where Im going, otherwise I spend my days walking in circles. He would bring a copilot to split up the hours. 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. The days went on and I could feel Sooki slipping, hounded by her own indecision. It has to be one of the most extraordinary stories of lockdown how Tom Hankss assistant Sooki Raphael, undergoing treatment for recurrent pancreatic cancer, came to be living in the basement of the novelist Ann Patchett and her husband Dr Karl VanDevender. Surely we would take off the Wednesday mornings when she had to be at the hospital at seven oclock. I told her, of course, that she would stay with us. Get Access to Print and Digital for She started a kids clothing business. On her last night we sat in my office after yoga and I asked her every last question I could think ofwhen did she work on the documentary about George Romero, and when did she marry Ken? He told SurvivorNet that after losing his wife, Alice, to a two-year battle with ovarian cancer, hell never really get over losing her, but he does hope to move forward. Karl said she should send him her records if she wanted to, and that he would talk to Johanna Bendell, an oncologist at the hospital where he works. I dont take notes. I cant tell you how appreciative I am. All the messages were about Tom and Rita. I should have thought of that one myself. Like a Cessna? Yeah. Because if I didnt know that Sooki had a husband, how much did she know about me, about us? Sooki was married? My death. There was no stopping it. Email tilts toward the overly familiar. A friend who was well versed in the experience brought them over early in the morning on Memorial Day. There is a magnificent quiet that comes from giving up the regular order of your life. My husband, Karl, and I sat in a dressing room with them for an hour and a half between sets. Having lost his mom to breast cancer in 2018, he knew he wanted to be extra careful during the pandemic. She brought her paintings upstairs to show us: a person who was too shy to say good night most nights was happy for us to see her work. A plane? The price of living with a writer was that eventually she would write about you. It came out of nowhere, like one of those weird storms that had plagued us in the spring. Copyright 2022 NPR. When Ann Patchett decides to try medicinal hallucinogens to accompany her ailing friend on a spiritual journey (also to alleviate the pain caused by chemotherapy), he gives them space. She was the magnet in the compass. Spanish for straight, direct. One more reason to like Tom Hanks: hes a reader. I was starting to understand that what she needed might have been color rather than conversation, breath rather than words. She gave us a giant furry blanket that I loved. Dionne Warwick came in with her son. I studied what did not come naturally, she told me. In the case of The Dutch House, Id started to think about a poor woman who suddenly became rich, and because she was unable to deal with the change in circumstances, she left her family and went to India to follow a guru. You cant go home, and we dont want you to go home.. Just think, I would say to her on Wednesdays. She told me that at home she had become impatient and angry. No doubt if Tom Hanks and Ann Patchett believe their friend to possess such wonderful qualities, she probably is a saint. As in Patchetts first collection of essays,This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, most of these pieces have been previously published in magazines (the New Yorker, Washington Post, Harpers) and are a blend of literature and memoir. Later, she asked him if hed be willing to record the audiobook of her latest novel, The Dutch House. When he agreed, she began a protracted email exchange with Raphael to work out the details. 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. She had wanted to study painting in college but it all came too easilythe color, the form, the techniqueshe didnt have to work for any of it. And I had never done anything like that before. Sister Nena shook her head. These are the precious days of the title. I dont even know how to respond to such generosity. I think this is just the way I am, she said. She was teaching at Bennington, in Vermont, and this was the first day of classes. 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. Her California and Tennessee oncologists had conferred so that she could transfer from one hospital to the other without missing a treatment. 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. Whats fascinating fails to translate. Haldane: a great public servant, much maligned, If you spent a day at Action Park you took your life in your hands, Finally: Diamond and Silk are releasing a book, Where are the scents of yesterday? . I was leaving the next day for an event in New York. But they had survived. Once she gets here and sees the way things are, shell be fine.. I chart your emotional life.. They had recovered. Lets go back to the hotel. The mistakes I had made were so clear once I had finished. Sooki let my friends with the plane know that she would be there on Thursday. The cell-phone case also served as her wallet, containing her credit cards, cash, IDs, insurance cardseverything important. Karl was sitting on the front porch and he called for me to come out. She had brought a squeaky toy for Sparky. In a previous interview with SurvivorNet, Caleb Farley talked about his mothers battle with breast cancer and how heopted out of his position as a cornerbackfor the Virginia Tech Hokies due to COVID-19 concerns. I had come late to pandemic shopping, but fortunately the staples I relied onchickpeas, coconut milkwere still plentiful. I told Sister Nena the whole story while we sat in the waiting room, her foot propped up on a wheelchair. I thought some nights my back would snap. Had I thought it through, I never would have had the nerve to ask in the first place. PATCHETT: Yes. He claims our lives are better for all the people I bring into the house. They clearly didnt understand she intended to walk, though knowing Sooki, she probably could have carried it. Forgot your password? Sooki got her pilots license before she learned to drive, Karl told me. dec. 27, 2019: Sweetest Ann, I am traveling todayjust for the dayup to Stanford for a second opinion, with the magicians elephant in my carry-on bag. So this is so crazy when I think about it - those dark ages before cellphones and the internet. He thanks me for it. The phone hadnt been run over, nothing in the wallet was missing. I waited but nothing came next. But of course the thing to do would be to go, wouldnt it? I Dont Want to Move On; I Do Want To Move Forward Doug Wendt On Being A Caregiver and Tragically Losing His Wife to Ovarian Cancer, Were never gonna move on, I dont even think I want to move on, but I do want to move forward, Doug said. She brought her paintings upstairs to show us: a person who was too shy to say good night most nights was happy for us to see her work. Sooki had two young grandchildren in San Diego and made plans to bring them to an event I was doing there, but they didnt show. Sooki hadnt lost weight but she was losing her ability to project her voice. Most mornings, Sooki set out in the darkness to walk the two miles to a power-yoga class that started at six-thirty, despite the presence of my car keys on the kitchen counter and explicit instructions to drive. 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. Shed gone to an Indian restaurant and bought bread stuffed with apricots and dates. My friend Patrick, who lives in a tiny apartment in New York, spends a couple of weeks with us every year, writing in our basement, which, for the record, is nothing like a basement. Writers who do readings at the bookstore are often stashed in the guest room. By the time I was done signing books that night, the event I had scheduled in New York the next day had been canceled. Had we not talked about the part where he stuck around to oversee our health and safety? She was checking email or trying to make notes. Death was the river that ran underground, always. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. My mother was a pilot, Sooki said, and there she was, suddenly at ease. They arrive daily in padded mailersnovels, memoirs, essays, historiesthings I never requested and in most cases will never get to. Farley trained for the NFL draft instead of playing for Virginia Tech, and his efforts paid off. Sooki agrees to stay for a few nights. Sooki had gone to work for the New York City Department of Healths Bureau of Animal Affairs right out of college. So every time I am writing a novel, once I get about a third of the way into it and I really know what I'm doing and I love my characters, I start to think, well, what happens if I get hit by a car? There is a bright therapist named Hassan at my assigned machine, always the same, with a sweet attitude. She painted. My breath was roaring now, in and out, my lungs enormous bellows that would not tolerate my death. She and Tom would walk in the desert in the early mornings and she would feed him lines from a script while he memorized his part, cobras skating through the dust just in front of them. That night there was still no power, and so we lit candles. I told her as much. I have to feel like Im contributing. I dont drink. I felt like someone was slamming me against a wall, not in anger but as a job. Marriage also meant that I would listen if he tried to talk me out of it. He describes her as "someone who is all that is good in the world." A neighbor of Patchett's described Sooki as a saint. Sooki was coming as a patient, and more than a little of the work was going to fall to him. Thought-provoking commentary and opinion on politics, books and the arts. PATCHETT: I really, really appreciate that. . What had been a theorySooki should come to Nashville for her chemowas now a fact. Assistant Sully (2016) Assistant Bridge of Spies (2015) . Don't have an account? We were standing in the kitchen in the late afternoon, the time before dinner and between two yoga sessions. Or maybe it wasnt as bad as that. Im doing the best I can to feel beautiful in this new body.. I just keep moving forward. She liked to fly. Susan Joan Sooki Raphael of Topanga, CA passed peacefully on April 25th surrounded by friends, family, color, light, joy, and love. But when? https://thespectator.com/book-and-art/ann-patchett-these-precious-days-moving-friendship-tom-hanks-assistant/, US edition of the world's oldest magazine, How Elizabeth I provoked the Spanish Armada, Prince Harrys misery memoir is a sad and lowering book, Elizabeth Taylors life was nonstop drama, Ann Patchetts moving friendship with Tom Hankss assistant, Violence and cross-dressing in post-bellum Tennessee, Good memoir-writing should be self-critical, R.B. 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. "How other people live is pretty much all I think about. I had spent my professional life looking at my calendar, counting down the days I had left at home. And I'm always taken aback because it feels a little like asking a parent, who's your favorite child? I was going to tell Karl what was happening but he was looking at his own phone. Lets try the car.. What a good idea. And so I couldn't call my mom. Ann Patchett one night happened to read a short story by the actor Tom Hanks, surprised by its literary quality. It was anchored by a quarter inch of hair at most but it was indeed anchored. feb. 15, 2020: I will try to keep this quick as I know you have many fish to fry. I had set my intention going in: I wanted to help my friend. I flew back to New York for two more events, the first one in Connecticut. We talked about what we were going to make for dinner. We were loaded with plans in those days. Join The Spectator community and view or post a comment on this article. Pay Hanks, by way of reciprocation, agrees to How it happened is told in the title story ofThese Precious Days, Patchetts second collection of essays. And if you decide you want to stay, well, you dont have to give that up either., Sooki the Tireless, Sooki the Indefatigable, looked as if she was about to split apart. To say that Patchett was impressed is an understatement. The paintings came from a landscape of dreams, pattern on pattern, impossible colors leaning into one another. Why couldnt she see that? All the people who love me and how hard this has been for them, the cancer. He and the other pilot talked flying with Sookis mother. 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. Look at what a success this time had been! What could have been a disastrous time becomes, for both of them, a cherished opportunity. We talked about singing and touring and about the Opry. In time, all I would have to say was, Its Friday. I knew I should sit with her at the table but I couldnt imagine it. Read More. Would you feel better about it if I did it with you?, She looked at me. Afterward we sat up at the hotel and talked about this new coronavirus and whether the rest of her tour would be canceled. At the heart of her new collection is a 66-page story about her transformational late-in-life friendship with Sooki Raphael, an artist and the longtime assistant to actor Tom Hanks. I sent more books: books Id written, books I thought shed like, Kate DiCamillo books to be read with her grandchildren. Many were the mornings the yoga felt endless to me, and so I would give her a wave as I left the mat and headed off to my desk. While they were gone I tried to imagine it: the cancer back, the wallet gone, strangers. PATCHETT: So I first met Sooki Raphael backstage when I was interviewing Tom for his collection of short stories. I was sorry for what Id done to him, by which I meant poisoning myself. But any story that starts will also end. I am hopeful and feeling radical. It was over. Theres a grain of truth in, Short term rentals have become a source of income for some property owners in the Santa Monica Mountains and a source of aggravation for others,, Theres a special place just a few miles up the coast, where whales, dolphins, and sea lions swim close to shore, where you can watch. I asked her whether she had ever been to Nashville before, and she said yes, once, with Tom a long time ago. She had once shown me a picture of herself standing in the surf wearing a bikini, a sarong tied around her narrow hips. Still, it seemed possible I could get off the ride early by expelling the mushrooms. She was supposed to wear a complicated Velcro gel pack (unfortunately called a penguin cap) on her head on the days she had chemo. I had a purpose to serve. Of course I want to go. I had to listen to what she was telling me. We did a different hour-long class every morning, identifying our favorites, ordering more DVDs. Telephone poles were down, and electrical wires snaked across the asphalt. (I say this as someone who is spending my days trying to write about our friendship and what happened here. Audience questions arrived on index cards, were read aloud and sorted through. She and Ken put what mattered most in the car and started driving, waiting to see which way the wind would shift the wall of flame. I know that after my last round of chemo I would sometimes get up and eat in the middle of the night, or get up early and make noisy smoothies. My friend Sister Nena had just called. Going forward, the lights may as well be off. Susan Joan "Sooki" Raphael of Topanga, CA passed peacefully on April 25th surrounded by friends, family, color, light, joy, and love. $23.99. Surely there were sadder things, but none of them came to mind. Born to Burton and Miriam Raphael, Sooki grew up in Port Chester, NY and graduated from Hampshire College. I need to go home, she said, looking at the pictures of herself she had asked me to take with her cell phone. Sooki was making dinner. What happens if I fall down the stairs? When her white count was too low to get treatment, she would run up and down the stairs at the hospital, down from the seventh floor to the first and back up again, over and over, and then get retested. I just cant stand the thought of being so disruptive to your and Karls (and Sparkys!) Wednesday was chemo. I was no longer sick or well. As we worked our way through trying to get contracts signed and making arrangements with the audio producer, our emails became an affectionate exchange. She brought her paintings upstairs to show us: a person who was too shy to say good night most nights was happy for us to see her work. I had thought I was writing a novel about a woman who had left her family to go serve the poor in India. About a quarter of the trees were down. The meeting led to Patchett asking Hanks on a "lark of the highest order" if he would narrate the audio version of her novel The Dutch House the ensuing . Copyright 2022 Topanga New Times, Published by Design Like It Matters, Inc. Login to add posts to your read later list. Raphael had a long career in the film industry before indulging her passion for painting. And then I found out that she had had pancreatic cancer, that she had had a Whipple, that she had gone through chemo and radiation, that she had been pronounced cancer free, that her cancer came back. Her love and passion and beauty will continue to live in her paintings, and in all of us who were privileged to have entered her world. Karl was standing in the doorway. How other people live is pretty much all I think about, she says. First one in Connecticut what was happening but he was looking at my assigned machine, always willing! Of course the thing to do would be canceled to ask in the waiting room, her propped! 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Was going to tell Karl what was happening but he was looking at my calendar, counting down the went. To what she was supposed to lug this cooler with her at the at... Asking a parent, who 's your favorite child whether the rest her! Of history that we had no way of understanding what we were going to tell Karl what was but. For painting I meant poisoning myself read a short story by the actor Tom Hanks: hes reader!
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