Watching the NBA Finals last week brought back some wonderful memories.

Everyone’s dream when you own a team is winning a championship. That’s the ultimate! You don’t even think how rarely that happens or that it sometimes never happens. You just keep trying!

We had owned the Baltimore/Washington Bullets for fourteen years by the time it happened for us in 1978.   And I remember so clearly that even as we were moving closer and closer to the possibility, we still didn’t know whether it would happen. Even the last game in Seattle….even the last few minutes in Seattle.   But, of course, that is the excitement of sports!

One of the amazing things that happened that year was that we had no injuries; that is also extremely rare.  In fact, we were scared to even mention it out loud.   Maybe, we would give ourselves some curse. And each day that passed and no injury, the quieter we got.   And if anyone tried to mention it, we shut them up as quickly as we could.
 
And when the final horn closed the game, there was dead silence in the Seattle arena.  EXCEPT in the corner we were sitting in.

We were screaming and jumping up and down!  My husband, Abe, shot out of his seat running and jumping  down the steps to the locker room so fast that I couldn’t keep up!   In fact, I was very angry with him for forgetting about me, his partner!

When I finally made it to the locker room and I saw him surrounded by the sweaty, jubilant,  screaming and yelling players, I forgave him. This was something he had waited for — hoped for –for so long!
 
We were on an unbelievable high and we enjoyed every minute of it.  And guess what? We wanted to do it again and again.

Congratulations to the Miami Heat.  I’m sure they are still celebrating!

Hello to all you present and past feminists!

I have a story to share.  Let me tell you about an experience that I had a week ago with someone who stated — quite vociferously — what a strong feminist she was and is to a small group at dinner. She obviously wanted this point to come across to everyone at the table.

Yet, on saying goodbye at the end of the dinner, she told me quite strongly how she felt about all of my husband Abe’s many accomplishments.  Well, I am extremely proud of my late husband’s many accomplishments as well as the wonderful husband he was to me.  We met as teenagers and grew up together; we built a life together.  We built a business together.  We shared everything and, as he said: I was his only partner.

What bothered me about this conversation?  That she assumed that I had nothing to do with all of the “accomplishments.”

This, from a feminist?

Okay, she doesn’t know all about our personal lives.  I can’t expect her or anyone to know that…yet the automatic assumption that I did not have anything to do with my husband’s work life should be anathema to a feminist.

I might add here that this happens quite often to me and I really don’t like to correct people when they do that.  But I wish people would meet other people where they are and not have pre-existing perceptions.  I learned this as a practicing psychiatric social worker for over 25 years.  Bringing pre-conceived ideas of what a person is when you meet them for the first time can end a potentially great relationship before it even begins.

I am so proud of Sister to Sister!

Often it takes time (and hard work!) to see the fulfillment of one’s goals.  Twelve years ago, I started the Sister to Sister, the Women’s Heart Health Foundation, after having worked in the field of chronic illness since 1974.   Our goal was to do everything we could to help women prevent heart disease.  That’s a pretty broad mission but there were a couple of things at the time that I felt were very important and would make it possible for us to have an impact.

Number one, and most important:  I knew that heart disease was the number one killer of women.

Number two:  I knew that heart disease had some positive aspects that other chronic illnesses did not have:  it was preventable! 

That is extraordinary!  Imagine…. there are actually things one can do to prevent a serious lifetime illness.  It is in one’s own hands.  The challenge was to get this information out to women, but also the people around those women.

Since that time, we’ve worked very hard and made a significant impact.  I am so excited for the new possibilities that are presenting themselves at the moment.  Opportunities that are now appearing that will allow us to reach women around the world.   I won’t go into the details in this blog; I will save them for later, but I am very excited.

I remember our first planning meeting twelve years ago.  At the end of the meeting someone asked me, what I would like to see once we were established.  And — giddy with excitement — my answer was:  “Tomorrow the world!” 

Well, this goal is looking possible.

We are taking our “screening intervention model” to a number of countries.    I will tell you more later.  Don’t want to give it away yet.  I am so excited now with these new developments that I just had to say something or I will burst!

Stay tuned!