sooki raphael tom hanks assistant

The title piece in the autobiographical essay collection These Precious Days by Ann Patchett is about her unexpected friendship with Tom Hanks's personal assistant, Sooki Raphael, who ended up living with Patchett and her husband in Nashville while enrolled in a medical trial for pancreatic cancer. The Hole Story: The Piddock Clam is a Born Architect. You should have planned for the financial fallout of having pancreatic cancer twice?. Raphael found great beauty during a tumultuous time of her life and shared that beauty with others through her artwork. My artwork is very reflective of my cancer journey, Cuozzo says. Farleys mother fought two battles with cancer. My childhood best friend was staying with us while this discussion was going on. But I think once youre here and see the setup youll understand. I finally asked her to write down the phone numbers of her husband and son and daughter, telling her that if she got sick, if she were in the hospital unexpectedly, Id need to know how to get a hold of them. We had been in some scrapes before. Its not too much. In return, she sent me pictures shed taken of Los Angeles, a woman in an orange sari sailing past a city bus on a bicycle. We at Harper's Magazine are deeply saddened by the loss of our former contributing editor Barry Lopez (1945-2020), who died on Christmas Day.Over the course of four decades, Barry wrote more than a dozen works of criticism, reportage, and memoir for the magazine, all of them informed by the combination of wonder and moral urgency that made him one of America's most beloved . It was enough just to be together in all that darkness. In the titular essay, Patchett reflects on her serendipitous friendship with Sooki Raphael. Anything thats happened to me, any adversity, any good times, any bad times, Ive always kind of stood on that rock of faith. I had breakfast with my editor and agent and publicist, and when we were finished they each decided not to go back to the office after all. The price of living with a writer was that eventually she would write about you. The problem wasnt how the trip would be organized, but what it meantpandemic, cancer, ninety-four. Sooki and I kept up a sporadic email exchange once the audiobook was done. Like a Cessna? It was a minor footnote considering everything I got from Karl, but still, the warmth of it, the love: to walk in the door after a long two days and see that someone had imagined that I might be hungry knocked me sideways. I dont even know how to respond to such generosity. He's really interesting. Except it was Sooki, and I liked her very much.. Once I start writing things down, I feel like Im nailing the story in place. Had I known she had a husband, might I have assumed that she was taken care of and so not followed the story as closely? Everything looks so logical going backwardYes, of course, thats what we didbut going forward its something else entirely. She seems very nice, Karl said once we were in the kitchen. We had found each other and we would not be lost. Once she gets here and sees the way things are, shell be fine.. I guess you never know if youre the person whos going to look good bald until youre bald.. He didnt know her, and I didnt exactly know her either. I was having trouble with my own volume now. Blind Boys of Alabama with Special Guest TBA. Farley trained for the NFL draft instead of playing for Virginia Tech, and his efforts paid off. The very fact of her existence in our house kept me on track. Sookis a pilot! Karl said. That night there was still no power, and so we lit candles. I didnt know what I was supposed to do, she told me later. A year and a half had passed since I had picked up his book in my office, and this was where it had taken me: Tom Hanks was willing to read The Dutch House. He responded: mar. We had finally found a completely comfortable way of being together. She had said almost nothing and yet my eye kept going to her, the way ones eye goes to the flash of iridescence on a hummingbirds throat. Common sense and a book - that's all you need. He would tell me how lucky we were, the three of us together. I had come late to pandemic shopping, but fortunately the staples I relied onchickpeas, coconut milkwere still plentiful. $23.99. But now shes memorialized in author Ann Patchetts latest book. Simply put, Karl makes rain. She was the New York City Bat Lady at 21. I didnt want to be one more person tugging at her coat, but I was. I miss our emails. I was packing boxes, writing cards, and making cheerful videos in which I extolled the virtues of the books I loved. No one had ever been so welcome. She shook her head. She shouldnt stay for us or leave for us. She was teaching at Bennington, in Vermont, and this was the first day of classes. I looked up every anomaly online, settling on too much black tea, or maybe the wrong color shoes. What about your sisters? I asked. Maybe I would find the fight in me, but I was never much of a fighter. What do your children do? You all did a book event. Pay attention every minute. By the time individuals walk into the clinic with symptoms like jaundice, weight loss, back pain or diabetes, its often very late in the stage of the disease., RELATED: Increased Thirst and Dark Urine: Researchers Reveal Two New Signs of Pancreatic Cancer As Cases Increase Over Last 18 Years, Detecting Pancreatic Cancer Early Is Crucial. I would bring her stacks of art books from the closed bookstore and she all but ate them. There was only color and the color was keeping time with the music, color breaking apart into tiles the size of Chiclets, the color of Chiclets, from which cathedrals rose in the sacred spirit of the Johns Hopkins playlist. I knew how to do that. No empty spiritual space. A week later, Tom Hanks started recording The Dutch House at a studio in Los Angeles. I had warned Sooki about all of this before she arrived. Assistant Sully (2016) Assistant Bridge of Spies (2015) . We had never spoken on the phone. It's by Ann Patchett. Shed been a location scout, made wedding cakes, started a childrens clothing company, taught ceramics. Of course we would exercise together; it was good for both of us. And so she meets Sooki Raphael, Hanks' assistant. We went out to the street on that bright morning to see a fire high up in the distance. Maybe its all the chemicals I have in me already. Then youd have to park. In Patchett's wildest dreams, she likely never saw a friendship blossoming later in life that would lead her to become a safe haven for a woman fighting against cancer. Karl had started flying in Mississippi when he was ten. Because if I didnt know that Sooki had a husband, how much did she know about me, about us? No, not Chekhov or Dickens or her one-time hero, Updike. You are powerful. 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. Or I should say the boundaries you think are there tend to fall away. And this led to you meeting Sooki. Please sign in to save videos. Hanks, by way of reciprocation, agrees to do the audio recording of Patchetts eighth novel, The Dutch House, and a sporadic email exchange between Patchett and Sooki develops into a friendship. Finally she went downstairs. How had she known something was wrong? That shed always been so careful not to cross any lines, not to advance herself through connections shed made through him. We knew it. So the trial was supposed to start at UCLA a couple of weeks later. I had pictured her going through this alone, a conclusion I reached on account of a lack of information and a florid imagination. When she gave us the painting she had done of Sparky on the back of the couch, I felt as if Matisse had painted our dog. A plane? A neighbor of the Patchett's described Sooki as a saint. Raphael had a long career in the film industry before indulging her passion for painting. Germline mutations in ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CKDN2A, PALB2, PRSS1, STK11 and TP53 are associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer. Curiosity is the rock upon which fiction is built. I wanted to call and tell her how it had all turned out. She wasnt just her illness. It may also depend on how you feel about cancer narratives as well as the life-enhancing or -destroying power of what are now politely referred to as psychedelic plants, but which used to be called drugs., Ultimately, though, the story shares its DNA with other essays in the book that focus on Patchetts life as a writer specifically, where and how she gets her material. She has children. Sooki came to Nashville and stayed in one place, no more movie stars, no more trips to Morocco and Tan-Tan. College was meant to be rigorous, and so she signed up for animal behavior instead. We did this to ourselves, I said, or maybe I didnt say it. But all Sooki did was help me. Who is she? Looks like were sitting on the edge of the apocalypse, Marti said, leaving her french fries on her plate. All that breathing and twisting and flexing fed her, and the calm voice of the instructor seemed to be speaking directly to her. Sooki had twice flown down to Mississippi with us to visit Karls ninety-eight-year-old mother. Kundalini is nothing if not an exercise in breath, and as it turned out, breath was what Sooki was craving. Tom Hanks needs a favor? "The press release is about to go out." I sat there and watched her read, waiting for something more, something that explained it. I had gotten up in the dark to make stacks of sandwiches. Well, over the next few minutes, we're going to revisit the moment I did admit that there is one author whose books I am guaranteed to gobble up, who I will read every time - Ann Patchett. I turned out the light and kept thinking about the leash, the marathons, the trail running, the yoga, the walking in the desert, the painting and painting and painting. A forest sprung up in the middle of the street. When she gave us the painting she had done of Sparky on the back of the couch, I felt as if Matisse had painted our dog.. When Patchett connected with Tom Hanks, who is a fellow author and book lover (among other things! That was my reward. She painted as fast as she could get her canvases prepped, berating herself for falling asleep in the afternoons. Its like youre going home to the Ukraine for the first time in ten years, I said as we loaded up coolers and bags. It was normal in October, three months postchemo and radiationgreat newsbut then started rising. Sooki wore a leash as a child, the energy in her tiny frame too much for her mother to control. . Nothing had to. And even when youre in the middle of it you can still get up and go to the bathroom. Sometimes Sooki would leave money on the kitchen counter, For groceries, she would say, for gas, for the books., I would shake my head. I no longer needed the protection. On Thursday morning I started to cry while walking Sparky. Wed had a very good life. I think about you often and hope for the best. Ive never seen a storm come up so fast. He leaned forward over the porch stairs. I wasnt looking for permission, but it was a matter of mutual respect. What became of them? The trees were down but not the houses, and the trees, from what I could see, hadnt fallen on the houses. I told her to take her time settling in. I think I know what Im doing when in truth I have no idea. Timeless stories from our 172-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day. But a few months later, I got an email from Tom Hanks early in the morning. Maybe Niki was right about my life being different, but maybe thats because I tend to think of things in terms of story: I pick up a book and read it late into the night, and because I like the book, I wind up on a flight to D.C. The essays, even when they are nominally about something else, are about the weight and grief of relationships: with her father and two stepfathers, her best friend, her husband and, improbably, actor Tom Hanks' assistant, a woman named Sooki with whom Patchett develops a deep bond. I just cant stand the thought of being so disruptive to your and Karls (and Sparkys!) She was right here, Karl said. All resources were now directed at a disease that was not the disease Sooki had. That I would like to meet her in the way I had wanted to meet my pen pals as a child? In making the journey to Oz, she had found the strength and clarity she needed to go home again. Jessica Everett, a genetic counselorat Perlmutter Cancer CentersPancreatic Cancer Centerat NYU Langone, encourages people in this category to look into possible screening options. This chemo wasnt the nightmare FOLFIRINOX had been. PGVs (pathogenic germline variants) are changes in reproductive cells (sperm or egg) that become part of the DNA in the cells of the offspring. Back before she came, when she was still insisting on finding a hotel, I asked her if we could talk for just a minute on the phone. My husband is a doctor, and I was telling him about this one night. I was an introvert again. Mine was the sin of misunderstanding, of thinking that a clinical trial was the point of the story. She had a double mastectomy and originally got implants with reconstruction. She left her canvases as colorful as she led her life. I never cry, and yet I had plans to do nothing else for the rest of the day and maybe the rest of the week. Then, we ended up staying in touch very lightly - you know, an email every month or two. You could sit with us and read if you wanted, answer emails. Sooki had had a toucan in college. We love you, Sooki. The day I picked up Sooki from the airport in February she told me she would need to buy dry ice for Wednesdays. The more literary essays include an introduction to the stories of Eudora Welty (No writer I know of tells the truth of the landscape like Welty); pieces on book covers (I finally knew how to ask for what I wanted I would send my books into the world wearing the best suit of clothes I could find); childrens stories; sitting next to John Updike at a lunch at the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and perhaps my favorite, To the Doghouse, on literary influences. She was indefatigably pleasant and warm while maintaining her distance. We lit the gas stove with matches and made dinner. I wouldnt have had this time with you and Karl. Id seen her work in action. He already knew. Everything filled in. Implicit in the idea of everyone getting together was the reality that this could be the last time it would happen. She painted her granddaughter striding through a field of her own imagination, she painted herself wearing a mask, she painted me walking down our street with such vividness that I realized I had never seen the street before,Patchett wrote. I had a purpose to serve. And I want you to explain why that felt easier to write during a pandemic than fiction. I knew people in college and graduate school who took mushrooms, and then about thirty years passed before I heard anything about them again. Its too weird., There is no weirdness left between us, I said. But her time as Hanks assistant brought her to a woman who would later become an invaluable friend during her cancer treatment and artistic journey. She has to have children., It could happen. Absolutely. The ones who stayed turned out to be the ones I was interested in. Are you not sorry you did it? I felt like it took me two minutes to put that much together. So happy to be the connector of good things. The artist said that the painting was a respectable copy from 1899 and sold for 25 francs (about $2,574 today). 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. Not to advance your cancer treatment? Im a good packer. She told me she had packed for good cheer, having had the reasonable expectation that times would be hard and cheer a necessity. There are days of the distant past that remain so vivid to me that I could walk back into them and pick up the conversation mid-sentence, while there are other days (weeks, months, people, places) I couldnt recall to save my life. Now I knew several people who were using them as part of therapy. Good, I thought. The car I was locked into was now hurtling down through a million winking flagella, every one a different color. The painting was a respectable copy from 1899 and sold for 25 francs ( about $ 2,574 )! 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