The last time I had the opportunity to talk with Sue Hart of Bangor, who retired last fall after working 20 years for the town of Orono, was in 2004 when she told me about a project she was eager to share with our readers known as Senior Angels, which is, according to its website, the sister program of Chemo Angels.
Senior Angels matches senior citizens who are homebound, in nursing homes or convalescent hospitals with a Senior Angel who, through a variety of methods, helps brighten their lives and lets elders know someone remembers and cares about them.
Both programs are national organizations. Chemo Angels are volunteers who help others going through chemotherapy treatment for cancer.
Sue told me at the time she discovered these organizations two years previously and recognized how much her mother, who died of ovarian cancer in 1998, would have appreciated having a Chemo Angel, and that a Senior Angel might have been even more important for her father during that difficult time in his life.
When I spoke with Sue last week, our conversation, although upbeat because she simply is that way, was of a vastly different nature because, as Sue so rightly pointed out, her longtime involvement as a volunteer with Chemo Angels and Senior Angels “has come full circle for me.”
Sue has been diagnosed with stage four lymphoma and stage four lung cancer and undergone all the prescribed chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
During a recent trip to Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Sue learned that due to her present condition she has been “put way to the back” of the list for a stem cell transplant.
In the meantime, her husband, Robert Hart, has left his job to care for her, and her friends and former co-workers have become Sue’s “personal angels,” doing what they can to help the couple cope with life as they know it today.
Sue’s former co-worker and friend, Susan Tuholski, contacted me to seek support from our readers for an upcoming fundraiser.
A Benefit Spaghetti Supper and Silent Auction for Sue Coyne Hart is slated for 4-7 p.m. Saturday, May 14, at First United Methodist Church, 40 South Main St. in Brewer.
Admission is $7 for adults, $3 for children and free for children 5 and under.
Susan and those planning this event hope you will attend and help support Sue and her husband.
If you are unable to attend, however, donations may be made to an account at Peoples United Bank in the name of Susan J. Cox-Funds for Sue Coyne Hart.
For information about the fundraiser or how you can help, call 974-8511 or 843-7503.
Sue is very hopeful that she will be up to attending the event that day, she told me, and she is looking forward to it.
She also continues to be very busy with the organizations she sought out, so many years ago, for the sole purpose of bringing friendship and comfort to others.
“Especially my senior guys,” Sue said of continuing to be active with Senior Angels.
“This program has gone right out of sight, and I still send letters and things to them in the mail.”
Sue is a Senior Angel to one person in Washington state, another in California and a third in Michigan.
“It gives me something to do and something to look forward to,” Sue said of maintaining those long-distance relationships.
Sue keeps her correspondence with her seniors as positive and upbeat as possible, just as she and her husband are trying to be each and every day.
To her friends and supporters, Sue said, “I’ve told them I’m still looking for the fat lady to sing, and she hasn’t even come up with a song yet, so we’re keeping our spirits up!”
Helping the Harts keep those positive vibes going are those special friends, family and neighbors, their “personal angels,” who are apt to drop by with a warm, healthy meal or colorful balloons just to brighten their day.
Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; javerill@bangordailynews.com; 990-8288.