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Insights from a Friend

6 Life Lessons to Reflect on During Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Friendship matters. "All of these life lessons are part of one major point of life: the importance of friendship," Haag says. "My friendship with Nancy spanned 18 years, and only in the first two years did we live in the same city. For the next 16 years, we communicated weekly by letters. Nancy was a great friend, never failing to send me some of her kind words, even when she was extremely ill. I will never forget or stop cherishing the friendship I had with Nancy. I was reminded what a great friend she truly was when an early reviewer of my book commented to me, 'I wish I could have been Nancy's friend, too.' I hope, through this book, that everyone can learn a few lessons from my friend."

Not all cancers are curable. "I didn't realize until I was doing research for the book that Nancy's breast cancer was not the type that was curable," Haag says. "I remember telling her that she could 'fight' it, when she found the first lump. I knew that some people had a lumpectomy and radiation, and then never had a recurrence. I always thought that would be what would happen with Nancy. But Nancy, herself, began calling it 'living with cancer,' rather than curing it. I admire the fact that she volunteered for treatment studies, when she could have just said, 'No, I don't want to go through anymore.'"

"Almost everyone knows someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer," Haag says. "By sharing Nancy's letters and e-mails through this book, I hope that I can encourage women to educate themselves about the disease. But more important even than that, I want them to think about the larger lessons of life that we're all here to learn. I loved my friend Nancy and I miss her – and I consider it an honor to share her, and her wisdom, with people everywhere."