Shares Lesson of Hope
in Cancer Crusade
David Perry, Executive Editor
Furniture Today, December 14, 2009
Reprinted with permission
Jai Pausch, who lost a famous husband to cancer last year, recounted his fight against the disease in a moving address that was one of the highlights of the 2009 Seena Magowitz Golf Classic held in December, 2009 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
She said her late husband, Randy, lived 23 months after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was enough time for him to see his daughter turn 2 and his son turn 4, and it was enough time for the family to share a final Christmas and to celebrate one last Father's Day.
Her voice broke as she recalled those special moments. Many of the 300 people in the room cried. I was one of them.
There have been many emotional moments during the Seena Magowitz Golf Classics, but Jai's speech was perhaps the most heart-rending in the seven years the event has been held.
She said that visiting cancer patients is a way for her to keep Randy's spirit with her. Those visits “rip her heart out,” she admitted, but she vowed to continue fighting pancreatic cancer until the deadly disease is vanquished.
Jai (rhymes with “say”) Pausch touched the audience in a powerful way, much as her husband touched the nation's conscience with his best-selling book, “The Last Lecture,” in which he shared life lessons.
Jai Pausch's strength was an inspiration to those attending the Seena Magowitz Golf Classic, which honors the memory of pancreatic cancer victim Seena Magowitz, the mother of bedding veteran Roger Magowitz.
The 2009 event was bigger than ever, attracting scores of top mattress executives and, most importantly, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the fight against pancreatic cancer. It appears the golf tournaments and related fund-raising events will push well beyond the $2 million mark in total donations when the final figures for the 2009 event are tallied.
“You are either a giver or a taker,” Roger Magowitz said in his closing remarks. “We have shown Jai we are an industry of givers, an industry that cares. We have shown the world we want to fight one of the world's deadliest cancers.”
With the passion of people like Jai Pausch and Roger Magowitz and pancreatic cancer researcher Dr. Daniel Von Hoff harnessed to this fight, it is one that can and will be won. That promising thought lingered in the meeting room. It pushed aside the pain and the tears and the sad stories of lives lost to cancer.
Once again we left Scottsdale with a spirit of hope. That is part of the magic of the Seena Magowitz Golf Classic.
