In an essay describing why she decided not to have children (There Are No Children Here) Patchett writes that she had to make a choice between writing and children and lacked the energy for both. While other people were left to worry about a virus that may or may not have been coming for them, I worried about Sooki. At what point does our understanding of the action shift? Most days I went to work at Parnassus for several hours, filling boxes. Don't have an account? But I think once youre here and see the setup youll understand. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. And I roll them all up. We miss you. Good, I thought. And it's such a funny thing. Sooki told me about evacuating for wildfires in the canyon where they lived in Los Angeles, a year and a half earlier, the night before she was scheduled to fly to North Carolina to have surgery. To say that Patchett was impressed is an understatement. Our correspondence was less about bookstores and more about books. How did she have twenty-eight vials of blood in her? The mistakes I had made were so clear once I had finished. But this was right, and we would all be fine. I think well be back tomorrow. I could see what they needed and what theyd given me. Anything thats happened to me, any adversity, any good times, any bad times, Ive always kind of stood on that rock of faith. RELATED:Tom Hanks and Rita Wilsons Friend and Assistant Dies from Pancreatic Cancer; See Their Heartfelt Tribute to the Artist, A post shared by Rita Wilson (@ritawilson), Throughout her illness she painted, she saw beauty, she created and she never wavered, Wilson said. And we were living exactly in the moment. Raphael is Tom Hank's assistant and friend. I had a concrete reason to be careful about the germs I was bringing into the house. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. We did our best to pretend that what we were doing was normal. In time, all I would have to say was, Its Friday. That was how I saw the coronavirusas something that could kill Sooki. Maybe its all the chemicals I have in me already. Then Covid strikes; 2020 is all but canceled and its impossible for Sooki to go home. Its essential to the life of a novelto come upon the turn you never saw coming. Dont worry about it, Tavia said. She took off her cap to show me the damage. Its so important to twist this way, the gentle voice of the yoga teacher reminded us. Just think, I would say to her on Wednesdays. It was just the three of us now, Sooki and Karl and me. I came back from Virginia and took Sooki to see the daffodils at the botanical garden, but we were too early. No one had ever been so welcome. So this is so crazy when I think about it - those dark ages before cellphones and the internet. In the press release for the exhibition, ROSEGALLERY said her works used her colorful palette as an expression of a renewal of spirit and life as she healed alongside the scorched landscape of the Malibu and Topanga hills.. This is whats been missing.. I asked him how he would feel about my extending an invitation to stay. All across the country clinical trials were being postponed or abandoned in an attempt to deal with the overflow of patients being treated for COVID-19. The thought of Tom Hanks benefiting from my assistance struck me as funny, and then I forgot about it. And it was working for Hanks that led Raphael to Patchett who would later become an invaluable friend to Raphael during her cancer treatment and artistic journey. It was such a short trip it hardly counted as being gone. The road forks and forks again. My husband, Ken, will come down for at least part of the time, once Ive started chemo, and I may have other visitors, so I think I will explore some other options in the area, but I cant tell you how touched I am that youve extended the offer. Later in the summer there was radiation, just to be safe. Now I look like an improvised elementary school art project, and in addition to owning my permanent tattoos, I have to nurture my three little stickers and hand-drawn sharpie marks so they last six weeks. That was my reward. Why had I been so careful? Sooki Raphael leaves her canvas as colorful as she has led her life. Like, I really understand that I'm going to die, but I don't want the whole novel to be wiped out. Curiosity is the rock upon which fiction is built. We can go up and back the same day.. That night I tried to explain it to Karl. "The press release is about to go out." I sat there and watched her read, waiting for something more, something that explained it. Then youd have to park. I didnt worry about her embarrassing herself. Rita Wilson recently posted a tribute to her friend, Sooki Raphael, who painted throughout her treatment for pancreatic cancer. Sooki had been working for the bat squad in New York when a bicentennial parade passed in front of the Bureau of Animal Affairs. She lit up with all that breath. College was meant to be rigorous, and so she signed up for animal behavior instead. On the Trail of a Mountain Lion The footprint was in the middle of the trail. It was just that we had piled up so much junk to keep from hearing it. She had a son and a daughter-in-law with two children who lived south of her and a daughter and son-in-law who had recently moved north. Whether all of this together was what helped, or whether she had made up her mind to see only the good, I couldnt say. The day after that she came upstairs wearing a sock hat. I cleaned out the freezer and the refrigerator and at every moment thought, We are so lucky. Sookis two sisters, one in Connecticut and one in Massachusetts, could meet them there, a family reunion at the airport. Tom and I are waiting to go on. The same trial she was part of in Nashville had finally commenced at UCLA, twenty minutes from her house. And then pancreatic cancer. We were in this together. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. Would it even work? 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. Surely there was a piece of this story she was leaving out because the next thing I knew shed sailed off with them. My friend Sister Nena had just called. She was doing every part of her job that could be done over email or by phone. I just would worry too much about being a bad friend. I was convinced it wouldnt show up and embarked on a full-scale exploratory mission into holistic healing, prayer, juicing, yoga, meditation, sound waves, and magnetic magic (this last one, highly recommended by a friend, but in a clinic run by a reality-tv star). Copyright 2022 NPR. Get as many nuns on this as possible. She traveled the world as the personal assistant to one of Hollywoods biggest stars. Walking backward is an excellent means of remembering how little you know. You cant go home, and we dont want you to go home.. Thats an important distinction and I encourage anybody who goes through this journey as a caregiver and then has to face loss, to think very carefully about how to move forward.. But now she's memorialized in author Ann Patchett's latest book, These Precious Days: Essays, which will be released Nov. 23. I was struck by an overwhelming sense of wanting to know her, of not wanting to miss Sooki while she was here. Never want to see this again? When they called, she asked them all the right questions. It's about Patchett's unexpected friendship with Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks' personal assistant, which developed when Raphael underwent chemo treatment while living at Patchett's house in Nashville at the start of the pandemic. Had it been a bad book or just a good-enough book, I would have put it down, but page after page it surprised me. The first door opened and I walked through. But any story that starts will also end. And who wouldnt be so blown away given the fact that Raphael didnt really emerge as an artist until her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in November 2018. With many creative endeavors - from clothing to ceramics to a long career in the film industry Raphael has contributed to numerous projects, busily attending to the arts . PGVs (pathogenic germline variants) are changes in reproductive cells (sperm or egg) that become part of the DNA in the cells of the offspring. So all the other girls went home. I had never found a way of asking what having cancer had been like for her, or what it meant to so vigorously refuse the hand you were dealt. Shed gone to an Indian restaurant and bought bread stuffed with apricots and dates. People die of this.. He shook his head. I sat at my desk for a long time, trying to make sense of this: time when there was no time, and talent all out of proportion to the task. Register, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilsons Assistant Died of Pancreatic Cancer. I try to keep all the parts of my life separate.. ANN PATCHETT: Aw, Mary Louise. Ill get there but its no small task to try and sum this up.). Locked out of your account? Sooki wore a leash as a child, the energy in her tiny frame too much for her mother to control. They would flow on in papery layers, in a creation act. It's an unforgettable story. He thanks me for it. Surely there would be a story there for one of us. Would you feel better about it if I did it with you?, She looked at me. She was Batgirl. She was welcome. The actor who starred in the romantic movie You've Got Mail sat down and wrote me a letter in his California office in Santa Monica. I find a stream and follow it, the stream dries up, and Im left to look for moss on the sides of trees. It was a shaggy dog of a story by a woman passionate about dogs, touching on a variety of subjects, including her friendship with Tom Hanks' assistant Sooki Raphael; Raphael's treatment. I wonder, I said to her one night while we walked Sparky around the block, do you think youre a good assistant because youre a private person, or did you become a private person because youve been an assistant for a long time?. 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. Later that day we sat side by side on our yoga mats, Sookis head wrapped artfully in a scarf. This wasnt the first time Id invited someone we didnt know to live with us. It was late and Id just finished the novel Id been reading. You could sit with us and read if you wanted, answer emails. Our newsletter vital information, hope, and healing, delivered weekly. Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process. Catalpa flowers littered the sidewalk, though I hadnt realized the catalpa trees were in bloom. But everyone showed up, all four hundred of them packed in side by side, every last chair in the ballroom occupied. I met an old friend from school who lived up in Harlem and she drove me out. I was taking in every precious day. I wouldnt be on the same floor of the house.. Karl looked up the name for it on his phone. I had just finished my latest novel, and on a lark of the highest order, I sent him an email asking if he might record the audiobook. I promise to be a more reliable friend and pen pal. But our truest means of communication arrived in the form of old yoga DVDs. I was grateful for both of those things. KELLY: Well, it's really, really true, so it was a pleasure to get to say it to you instead of just pining to my book club about how I wish you had another book coming out. And so she meets Sooki Raphael, Hanks' assistant. Now she would go home to her husband, her children, her grandchildren, her friends. I had been afraid of how the story would end. She told me that part of the reason shed been hesitant to stay with us was that she didnt want to trade on Toms friendship with me. And which, despite several cringe-worthy passages, it is a moving and memorable account of a brief but incandescent friendship. Sooki Raphael leaves her canvas as colorful as she has led her life. I thought some nights my back would snap. When Patchett connected with Tom Hanks, who is a fellow author and book lover (among other things! When we got home from our walk, I emailed Sooki and said that if she wanted Karl to check on the possibility of a trial in Nashville she should send her medical records. I had set my intention to help my friend, to hold her hand and go with her while she went to peer over the cliff, the cliff that, coincidentally, I fell off. What a good idea. But all Sooki did was help me. I went to sleep with my husband. She loved her family and was devoted to her grandchildren. And so I couldn't call my mom. I saw my mother and sister. 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. 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. Jessica Everett, a genetic counselorat Perlmutter Cancer CentersPancreatic Cancer Centerat NYU Langone, encourages people in this category to look into possible screening options. I leave the house at 6:30 am every weekday morning to make it down to the bottom basementfloor 2Bat UCLAs Westwood Medical Center by 7:30 am. I cant tell you how appreciative I am. The overarching theme in many of the essays is the writing life, from the kindly advice she got as an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence from the celebrated author Allan Gurganus to her near-religious experience reading the works of the childrens author Kate DiCamillo. KELLY: Well, it's really, really true, so it was a pleasure to get to say it to you instead of just pining to my book club about how I wish you had another book coming out. You should have planned for the financial fallout of having pancreatic cancer twice?. assistant: Tom Hanks - as Sookie Raphael: Cloud Atlas: 2012: assistant: Mr. Hanks - as Susan 'Sooki' Raphael: Game Change: 2012: TV Movie assistant: Mr. Hanks: Larry Crowne: 2011: assistant: Mr. Hanks: Big Love: 2006-2011: TV Series assistant - 48 episodes: The Pacific: 2010: TV Mini-Series assistant - 7 episodes: Where the Wild Things Are: 2009: assistant: Tom Hanks: Angels & Demons: 2009: assistant: Mr. Hanks: City of Ember: 2008: assistant: Mr. Hanks I think about you often and hope for the best. Im doing the best I can to feel beautiful in this new body.. Were they awake and choosing not to come to the basement? She wanted to know what constituted being a good houseguest during a tornado. Now, their friendship lives on in Patchetts latest book which will be released on Tuesday Nov. 23, 2021, entitled These Precious Days: Essays a collection of essays that shares another intimate look at the inner workings of her mind. But she rarely stayed upstairs. And it's such a funny thing. Again it would appear this story had reached its conclusion. SANTA MONICA, CA.-. In the twenty-six years that Karl and I had been together, Id never had the experience of coming home to dinner being made. I dont know why I didnt have the sense to worry, but I didnt. ROSEGALLERY is presenting These Precious Days, a solo exhibition of paintings by Sooki Raphael, on view from 10 April until 10 May, 2021. Every day Sooki came upstairs looking spectacularembroidered jeans, velvet tops, a different coat, a perfect scarf. Shes there in Patchetts basement for the rest of lockdown. Seventy percent of participants rated it among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives. He rolled his eyes, but he kept reading. Entire countries have lost their distinctive smell, The Wests industrial-sized chicken farms could be as dangerous as any wet market. Go together. Did my character want to be a nun? Or maybe it wasnt as bad as that. assistant (as Susan 'Sooki' Raphael, Mr. Hanks) 2012 Game Change assistant (Mr. Hanks) TV Movie 2012 Larry Crowne assistant (Mr. Hanks) 2011 Big Love assistant: Tom Hanks assistant: Mr. Hanks TV Series 2006-2011 48 episodes The Pacific assistant: Mr. Hanks (Mr. Hanks) TV Mini Series 2010 7 episodes Where the Wild Things Are assistant (Tom Hanks) And I had never done anything like that before. Look at this.. Even if it wasnt a perfect plan, it was better than doing nothing. We took turns cooking or cooked together. Im self-conscious about being in the way, especially if Im not at my best through chemo. All the people who love me and how hard this has been for them, the cancer. On the first Sunday in May, in the late afternoon, a storm kicked up, not expected but not a surprise either. As we worked our way through trying to get contracts signed and making arrangements with the audio producer, our emails became an affectionate exchange. Germline variants are passed from parents to their children, and are associated with increased risks of several cancer types, including pancreatic, ovarian and breast cancers. She started a kids clothing business. 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. feb. 15, 2020: I will try to keep this quick as I know you have many fish to fry. I scooped up a handful for no reason and carried them with me. How Does the Story End? We had found each other and we would not be lost. 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