[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 23, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1378-E1379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN MEMORY OF SUSAN YOACHUM

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 23, 1999

  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I called to the attention of our 
colleagues the wonderful life and courageous death of Susan Yoachum. No 
one could better memoralize our loss than Susan's husband Michael 
Carlson, whose statement I am commending to our colleagues today.

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, June 22, 1999]

Grace in the Face of Fear--Susan Yoachum Met Her Death From Cancer as a 
                                  Hero

                          (By Michael Carlson)

       It was a public event when my wife, Susan Yoachum, died of 
     breast cancer a year ago today. As political editor of The 
     Chronicle and as a television commenter, she had become a 
     familiar name and face. Her funeral was covered on 
     television, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown ordered city 
     flags to fly at half-staff, and the White House sent a letter 
     of condolence.
       Susan's struggle with breast cancer had been no less 
     public.
       She had spoken and written movingly about her ordeal. She 
     wanted to put a human face on a disease that is the No. 1 
     killer of American women ages 25-55. She hoped that by 
     personalizing breast cancer, more might be done to prevent 
     and cure it. And she wanted to spread the word that early 
     detection--through monthly self-exams and regular 
     mammograms--can increase a woman's chance of survival.
       My mourning was less public. And I was more private about 
     my reaction to Susan's illness.
       Recently, I decided to speak out about Susan and her fight 
     with cancer at the invitation of The Breast Cancer Fund, a 
     research, advocacy and patient-support charity that honored 
     Susan at its annual ``Heroes Tribute.''
       The idea of heroes and the nature of courage are topics 
     that I have thought about a lot since Susan died.
       The dictionary defines a hero as a person admired for their 
     courage.
       I admire Susan for the courage she showed in facing her own 
     death. What she taught me about courage could be the first 
     chapter of my own self-help book, ``All I Need to Know About 
     Living I Learned From How My Wife Chose to Die.''
       In addition to everything else she is and was to me, Susan 
     is my personal hero.
       She did not consider herself courageous and would have been 
     bewildered at being called a hero.
       She did not consider herself courageous and would have been 
     bewildered at being called a hero. Two days after realizing 
     her cancer had spread, Susan recorded a conversation with her 
     sister-in-law in her journal: ``Patti said last night that 
     she told her friends that I was brave. It sounds so noble and 
     grand that I loved the sound of it at once. Yet I don't feel 
     brave.'' Susan told me she didn't feel brave because cancer 
     and death scared her so much.
       When she was first diagnosed with cancer in 1991, Susan 
     wrote about her fear: ``I have met younger women with breast 
     cancer and older women with breast cancer. Some are mothers; 
     some are grandmothers; some are executives; some are artists. 
     They are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, rich, poor, bitter, 
     hopeful--but there is one thing that all of us are, and that 
     is sacred.''
       Susan was more blunt six years later when her cancer 
     spread. ``I'm scared out of my wits,'' she wrote in 1997. 
     ``It's the kind of fear that makes your blood run cold, the 
     sort of fear that floods in when you lose sight of a child in 
     a crowd.''
       Why do I call such a frightened person courageous?
       Courage has nothing to do with being fearless.
       ``Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The 
     truth is they are intimate with fear,'' writes Pema Chodron 
     in ``When Things Fall Apart.'' Courageous people are those 
     who persevere in spite of and in the face of their deepest 
     fears.
       Susan was intimate with fear. Despite that, from 1991 and 
     until her death in 1998, she lived her life with remarkable 
     energy and spirit. She did more than just persevere. She 
     celebrated life. She faced her illness by living as if each 
     day was a gift. She believed that life was to be enjoyed 
     today, now, before time ran out.
       Susan enjoyed her life immensely and brought happiness to 
     those around her. She fought for those things she thought 
     important, including raising awareness about breast cancer. 
     She continued to write about politics for as long as she 
     could because she thought it was important and because it 
     brought her joy. And Susan had fun. In her words, she inhaled 
     life.
       That took courage.
       Although Susan did not consider herself courageous, she 
     understood what she was doing and wrote about it: ``How many 
     times in therapy-kissed California have we heard that the 
     only things we can control are our own responses to what 
     befalls us?'' Susan's response to her fear was ``to make 
     peace

[[Page E1379]]

     with life and death'' and ``to make some peace with the 
     cancer.'' ``It is going to be with me every day,'' she wrote. 
     ``If living with cancer every single day is the price of 
     living . . . it is worth it. I'll pay it.
       I've been paying it. I will continue to pay it.''
       Susan believed that having cancer demanded ``that you try 
     to grab all that you can from life--even more than you 
     thought was there, even more than you thought you could.''
       ``Breast cancer is a wake-up call: to cherish the laughter 
     of children, to savor the fragrance of flowers and to feel 
     the majesty of the ocean,'' Susan wrote. When you feel like 
     you're on the cutting edge of life, the sky looks a little 
     more blue, sunsets look a little more red, and the people you 
     love seem a little more dear.''
       I now have met numerous women with breast cancer who know 
     exactly what Susan meant. Those women have looked their own 
     demons in the eye and have found the courage to celebrate 
     life.
       I admire their courage.
       They are, as Susan was, heroes living among us.

       

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