When Pamela was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she decided to live every day with intention, to spend time with the people who matter to her–her family, her husband, and her community.

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Transcript

I’m Pam. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November of 2024.

In the beginning, Jeffrey and I would wake up in the morning like, “This is a dream. This is a dream. It’s not real.” The first thing we did was, I wanted to go to our lawyer and draft a will, and he talked about something called an ethical will. Something about the legacy you want to leave and telling your family and your children what you want to do.

That sort of sent me on that journey of how I wanted to live my life. And I want to make sure that I’m a presence in my children’s and grandchildren’s lives. So for each of my six granddaughters, I had a necklace made for them with their initial and with something said, “Love, Grandma” on the back. So with their bat mitzvah, they will each get something from me and the four boys will get a kiddish cup.

So I don’t know how long I’ll be here. It’s looking more promising, but if not, they’ll have something from me. I’ve already told my kids that they’re gonna feel me and hear me all the time, and they’re gonna get sick of me.

And so I think the first thing was, that I wanted to tell my kids and leave is the idea of gratitude and faith. And my Judaism is extremely important to me. And as a child of a Holocaust survivor, it’s truly been part of my life, and hopefully I’ve made that clear to my children.

When you’re facing the end of your life, you start thinking, “Well, did I make everything clear? And do my children know how lucky they are and how lucky we are?” And you know, that gratitude should be the guiding premise of your life. So that’s where I want to be.

I started to also think that family is the most important thing. At that point, our son Kevin lives in Detroit and our son Michael lives in Israel and our son David lives next door to us. I said to my kids in Detroit, “I want to see you every month.” So since December, we’ve seen the kids every single month. Either they come here or we go there. So my immediate family is amazing, but my extended family has been unbelievable.

Jeffrey, he’s just my rock. He takes me everywhere. He takes care of me. Takes care of my soul and my physical body. Our souls are just really working together, and we just also enjoy each other’s company so much and we’re very blessed. He’s just been with me the whole way, and supportive and loving and just taking care of me. I’m never alone. And that’s just always to know that he’s there with me. Jeffrey’s been amazing.

The outpouring of love from my friends and community and family…people want to connect and I want to connect with them. You know, it changes the connection because you feel like you have to get as much in as you can for as much as you can.

Now I feel like I need to make sure I have the experiences because we might…so it’s the same with friends and family. It’s like, “I’ve got to see you because I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” So each visit is that much more important. It’s like you live your life, but with more intention. One of the other things that I want to make sure that I impress on my children is how lucky we are that we have to support our community, and philanthropy is extremely important.

I want a legacy, not only the money for the Jewish community, but also to show my children and to put my money where my mouth is and to actually do what I believe. It’s also become more important to me to teach that or to make that more important to them also, understanding how grateful and lucky we are. It’s so important for all of us to support our communities and to support financially and be involved. I’m grateful that my children are all that way now, so philanthropy and community and family…family is so important.

Somebody once told me that every day you wake up, you choose to love the person that you live with. I’ve taken it to every morning you choose the way you’re going to live that day. You can choose to be miserable or you can choose to choose life. And so I choose life.

I was on my trial medicine at the time and so I did have a few side effects, but I carried on and we just did everything. I just want to talk a little bit about the fact that with all the joy and the gratitude and the feeling that I can conquer everything, there are things that you have to face. And one of them is wearing a diaper sometimes. At the very beginning that was very disturbing to me and very upsetting.

We went to Hershey Park and I thought, “I am not missing this day. I am not missing the fun with my children.” So I wore a diaper. Now I tease about it I mean, it’s just like a new life. I’m a positive person. I came into this pretty much without fear. I’ve never been afraid.

Of course I’m sad about it, but I’m not distraught. I’m taking it as it is and what’s to come. I don’t want to be in pain. I’m afraid of pain, but I’m not afraid to die. I haven’t lost faith in God, but I’m sure there are people that do.

I thank God that I’m not afraid. I just want to be a presence. I want to be a force in everybody’s lives. All in all, I’m living a very nice life.