My name is Linda and this is the story of my “smile-buddy project” in memory of my mom Rita Lehrer:
My mom was the best mom: loving, caring, kind and generous. The kind of mom that, growing up, some of my friends called their second mom. She was full of unconditional love. She didn’t care who you were, what you did, she just gave you love and didn’t expect anything in return. We had the best relationship. I just expected her to live forever, but that doesn’t happen. In 2009 she died of cancer. In her last conversation with me before she died, she told me “I love you and I want you to stop crying. I’m at peace, and I want you to be at peace.” So rather than be sad, I knew I had to find a way to share her unconditional love with the world. I think of her every day, and when I do a good deed, make someone laugh or smile, or give a hug, I feel she is with me.
Then, in 2015, I myself, started being followed at a cancer center. Again, rather than be sad, I knew I was going to learn something through my own experience that would help me carry on the beautiful legacy of my mom Rita. A few things helped me get through a rough 2 years: Doctors, medicine and surgery helped to “cure” me by removing my tumor (for a while), but what helped me to heal was love and art therapy. Love from my family, friends, new-found friends at the cancer centre, understood what I was going through.
I knew I had to take my medicine but I didn’t like the side effects. I didn’t like looking at that pill bottle a few times a day.
One day in 2017 I had a conversation with a friend of mine, Mirella, who was feeling sad, for her own reasons. I came home that night and said out loud to myself “I wish I could bottle a smile and a hug for her, so I used an empty medication bottle I had, and decided to use it for something to make her happy:
I searched the house for art supplies and created a “refillable hug prescription”, which kind of ended up, as you can see, looking like my own little version of Grover from Sesame Street.
I presented it to her the next day and she told me how touched she was from the gesture.
The same week someone else I knew was going thought a difficult time. I asked her what she needed to get her though this difficult period. She told me “Courage”. Somewhere in our conversation one of us mentioned a fairy. I went home that night and created a “courage fairy”. The next day I presented it to her and she told me how much she appreciated her new fairy. She still has it and tells me how it continues to “magically” give her courage.
I realized then that I had finally discovered a way to carry on the legacy of love of my mom. I made a few more “smile prescriptions”. Then I went to a local art hive that had just started, and some of the participants helped me to create other versions. At a mindfulness course I took at the cancer centre in 2017, during an introspective moment, I came up with their current name and since then, I began to give out more of what I now lovingly called my “smile buddies”.
I met Virginia, a nurse at the Cancer Centre at her “Stronger Than you Think” workshop. She encouraged me to go to the Art Hive at the Cancer Centre. This was the real launch of the idea behind this project. Here’s a pic of Virginia and I. In the pic you can see my initial commitment to helping 1 million people smile!
Later in 2017 I presented some of my “smile-buddies” at the first of three vernissages I participated in, of art made by cancer patients at the centre where I am being treated. Participating in the vernissage gave me the courage to get to the next chapter of my story about Rita.
Since 2017, I have been using empty pill bottles to help people on an individual basis: patients I have met at the cancer centre, people I have met at various art hives, friends and colleagues) create their own personalized “smile-buddy” to help them add meaning and joy to their lives, even along the challenging cancer journey, or any other journey they find themselves on.
On July 26, 2022 Rita would have celebrated her 100th birthday, so I decided it was time for my little project to spread its wings. Like a fine wine, I hope it gets even better with age. You are cordially invited to join me In this project of loving-kindness. Just send me an email with your comments/suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you,
Linda
