sooki raphael tom hanks assistant

2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Yoga and meditation for an hour in the morning was augmented with yoga and meditation for an hour at night. Its important to think about your intentions before you start, my friend told us. I did kundalini yoga in the morning, a practice that was built around a great deal of rapid breathing, and then I went on to other things. Even in this first picture, a self portrait of her while undergoing chemo during Covid she still painted. Her love and passion and beauty will continue to live in her paintings, and in all of us who were privileged to have entered her world. When Patchett connected with Tom Hanks, who is a fellow author and book lover (among other things! That led to Patchett's friendship with Sooki Raphael, Hanks' assistant, and Patchett inviting Raphael to live in her home in Nashville while undergoing cancer treatment. He thrilled them, buying stacks of books, signing books, posing for pictures, going next door to the Donut Den for an apple fritter. I pushed my face into his shoulder, apologizing. People were out with their dogs. You all did a book event. Sooki went downstairs to her room. It seemed to be key to the way humans were shaped, and I was aware that this was going on for others around you. Marriage meant that he would hear out what on the surface may have appeared to be a spectacularly stupid idea. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray. I didnt see how it could hurt to ask. I tried to find a place for this new fact in the equation but all I could come up with was the obviousI didnt know her. It becomes a path into the woods. I shook my head. As we worked our way through trying to get contracts signed and making arrangements with the audio producer, our emails became an affectionate exchange. Once a pilot, always a pilot. I should have planned better, she said. New This Week; Available Now; Plant Types Want to change your email address or password? The fact that the two of you want me here, that you love me, that you believe in meit makes me believe in myself. Sooki was making dinner. Just think, I would say to her on Wednesdays. 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. Sooki had had a toucan in college. Which she did. We put on the music, the eye masks, covered up. She wanted to know about the book I was going to write next, the book I had just barely started thinking of. How thrilled they would have been to have even a few of the hours she wasted with us. Small, flat islands of boiled wool were resolutely attached to her scalp by the 2percent of hair that had not fallen out. UCLA would fold her into their trial, everything seamless. Most days I went to work at Parnassus for several hours, filling boxes. . It turned out to be more or less the truth. We can go up and back the same day.. I have limited time as I work til mid May, then leave the US in June until I come back to start another movie in September. Dont do this., That was when her eyes would well up. My goal was to maintain neutrality. She met Sooki Raphael,. There were so many other people who would have done anything to be with herher mother and husband, her daughter and son and grandchildren, her sisters and all of her friends. I will keep you more closely posted as I move ahead (in the right color shoes). Am I the person youre talking to, or are you talking to someone else downstairs late at night? How had I not asked her all these things before? I'll see if I can get her into a trial here in Nashville. I was going to tell Karl what was happening but he was looking at his own phone. Forget that. Audience questions arrived on index cards, were read aloud and sorted through. In an essay describing why she decided not to have children (There Are No Children Here) Patchett writes that she had to make a choice between writing and children and lacked the energy for both. A hundred thousand people in this country had already died of the coronavirus. It becomes the woods. You can live here for the rest of your life, I said, and I meant it. And there I was, going nowhere. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. Our lives ran the way they always did, only with the addition of a quiet person who did her best to take up as little space and be as helpful as possible. There was no money or freedom or wherewithal to buy another ticket and see him sooner. Get help here. Use this bar to access information about the steps in your cancer journey. Im a vegetarian. There were mornings we would go to the store at first light, when no one was around, and tape up boxes and stick on labels together. She had transferred her life into brushwork, impossible colors overlapping, the composition precariously and perfectly balanced. Every morning before breakfast, we waved our hands in the air. We had just passed Stuyvesant Park when the first tower fell. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. I took her to the J.M.W.Turner exhibition at the art museum. The caps had to be switched out every twenty-five minutes during treatment to ensure that her head stayed more or less frozen. She was disappointed. I asked her whether she had ever been to Nashville before, and she said yes, once, with Tom a long time ago. The trip came together quickly. PATCHETT: Yes. Dionne Warwick came in with her son. She had wanted to be a better person, and here she believed she was better. Giant hackberries had fallen into maples and split them in half. , The Amazing Rita Wilson's New Film About Choosing Life; How she beat cancer & Became A Songwriter, 'Hot, Sweaty And Itchy' Feeling Turns Out To Be Cancer For 42-Year-Old Man-- When To Seek Help, 'Miracle Baby Girl' For 29-Year-Old Who Thought Motherhood Would Not Be Possible After Late Stage Cancer Fight, 54-Year-Old's Misdiagnosed Muscles Spasms In Shoulder Turn Out To Be Pancreatic Cancer, Apple's Steve Jobs Was Trying To Accept Powerlessness & His Place In The Universe The Newly Revealed Email To Himself, 'World's Sharpest Elbowed' Comedian Vows To Do 'Fabulous' Last Tour As Ovarian Cancer Comes Back, Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), Entranced by her velvet coat and kind demeanor, opted out of his position as a cornerback. I wouldnt have had this time with you and Karl. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. We talked about what we were going to make for dinner. I was an introvert again. "Let's go back to the hotel. That night there was still no power, and so we lit candles. Thats been everything to me, and my life. We were still at the beginning then. Here is a non-fiction account from Harpers magazine, by the novelist Ann Patchett, of how she met Tom Hanks, and through him got to know his personal assistant, Sooki Raphael. KELLY: My conversation this past fall with author Ann Patchett about her latest book "These Precious Days. I said good luck because there was nothing else to say. UCLA had plans to start the same clinical trial that was up and running in Nashville, but not for another month or two, a unit of time that could not be lost to waiting. Sooki and I shined our flashlights on the smooth bark of the trees that lay across the streets. And she couldn't fly because the flights were canceled. She had set up her life in the basement of our house, a place we never went. So happy to be the connector of good things. Direct flights to Los Angeles had been suspended, and even if shed wanted to fly to Dallas to wait and see whether the connecting flight would be canceled (because thats what happened now), her weekly blood draws underscored the fact that she scarcely had enough white cells to qualify for chemo, much less protect her from a pandemic while on a commercial flight. She had made up her mind that it was going to be okay. She had brought a squeaky toy for Sparky. 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. Im in Albuquerque shooting a movie. Whats fascinating fails to translate. Wonderful Sooki! Derecho. She wrote home with vivid tales and photographs that demonstrated the color and beauty of her travels in the most unique ways. Sooki and I needed the same thing: to find someone who could see us as our best and most complete selves, writes Patchett. My childhood best friend was staying with us while this discussion was going on. Gingerly we picked our way forward. I live fourteen minutes from the airport and five minutes from the hospital. 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. Entranced by her velvet coat and kind demeanor, Patchett knew she wanted to be friends with Raphael. I have to know where Im going, otherwise I spend my days walking in circles. After a while she drifted up to the kitchen, taking a stab at the half of banana I had abandoned. RELATED: If Youre A First Degree Relative of Someone With Pancreatic Cancer, Screening and Surveillance Could Save Your Life; Heres Why, Because the pancreas is inside the abdomen often doesnt have symptoms that would tell you that something is wrong with your pancreas, he says. Then Covid strikes; 2020 is all but canceled and its impossible for Sooki to go home. We are Southern, and it is like this here, always. On the Trail of a Mountain Lion The footprint was in the middle of the trail. Could I meet him at the bookstore, Parnassus, in half an hour? Sooki had downloaded it. In fact we were so exactly in the middle of history that we had no way of understanding what we were seeing. Still, wasnt it worth mentioning? These are the precious days of the title. She worked for Tom Hanks. I didnt understand what it was, but something was in the air. Twenty-five people had been killed in the last round of tornadoes in Nashville, two months before. Dont worry about it, Tavia said. It was now or never. And it's so unexpected to come across a friendship like that at this point in life. I can fly you up, Karl offered, once her mother was safely home. We just kept sitting there in the stillness, the kind of dark that electricity wants us to forget ever existed. Farley announced the news of his opt-out in an Instagram video saying, in part, I cannot afford to lose another parent or loved one Though the competitor in me badly wants to play this season, I cannot ignore whats going on in my heart, and I must make the decision that brings me the most peace., 2021 NFL Draft Prospect Caleb Farley Tells SurvivorNet His Mom Was Like a Superhero Before She Lost Her Battle with Breast Cancer; Heres What Got Him Through. And then I found out that she had had pancreatic cancer, that she had had a Whipple, that she had gone through chemo and radiation, that she had been pronounced cancer free, that her cancer came back. Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease that is difficult to detect because symptoms - including jaundice and weight loss - typically present at a later stage in the cancer's development. You have to remember.. It's an unforgettable story. Twenty-five people died in Nashville the night of those tornadoes. What about the children who were left behind in that house she hated? Ive got to take care of my nun, I told him. I had missed my chance. I couldnt. Lucy said she didnt have time for this. We have come to the point in this story when time changes. She even worked for Wilson's husband, Tom Hanks, as his assistant. It was possible, and I had no intention of thinking about it. I rose as I pressed against the floor. Spanish for straight, direct. Then, we ended up staying in touch very lightly - you know, an email every month or two. The greenroom crowd was then escorted to their seats, and we were ushered to the dark place behind the curtainTom Hanks, his assistant, and I. Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease that is difficult to detect because symptoms including jaundice and weight loss typically present at a later stage in the cancers development. And who wouldnt be so blown away given the fact that Raphael didnt really emerge as an artist until her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in November 2018. And it was working for Hanks that led Raphael to Patchett who would later become an invaluable friend to Raphael during her cancer treatment and artistic journey. But my sixty-four-year-old houseguest with recurrent pancreatic cancer asked for absolutely nothing but this. Donations can be made in her name to Pancan.org or Seasave.org/oceanofsooki. What a good idea. I was so afraid Id killed you.. Id be grateful if youd pray for her, I said, because while I was uncertain about prayer in general, I believed unequivocally in the power of Sister Nenas prayers. Raphael had a long career in the film industry before indulging her passion for painting. But the only information I had was in the book. This chemo wasnt the nightmare FOLFIRINOX had been. Its why I dont like to go to other peoples houses for dinner: I never want to tell people Im a vegetarian. may 31, 2020: Ive already worked out this morning. We both wrote for the New York Times. I asked her. This is a great read. I caught an early flight home. Who is tom Hanks assistant? I told him. Sooki thought about it, or she thought about having to tell me. And certainly, I have made some close friendships as an adult, but there is a quality of youthful friendship that is based on wasting time together, having just whole days where you're not making plans, you're not entertaining one another. But of course I was the one who took everything. That was how I saw the coronavirusas something that could kill Sooki. I am now sitting at the airport waiting to catch a plane to my next opinion, at Sloan Kettering in NY. It had zero spiritual component. I didnt need to hear about the first opinion to know what that meant. If youre concerned about pancreatic cancer in your family, start by talking to a genetic counselor to learn more about your risk and what options you have, Everett said. The car I was locked into was now hurtling down through a million winking flagella, every one a different color. She didnt know. That was the point of everything. Its undeniable that money and privilege are a great help. Nell stayed for six months and we loved her. I wasnt sure why I was negotiating my characters future with my friend, but there I was, listening. All this time Id been afraid of prying, only to discover that Sooki was happy to talk, to tell me about the bats, the sailboat to St.Barts, the desert in Tan-Tan, the surgery. I flew to New York early the next morning, took a car to New Jersey, signed several hundred books, attended a cocktail-party fund-raiser for the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, gave a talk in a crowded town hall, got to my hotel room in Manhattan at midnight, got up in the morning to tape a segment for the Today show, then was back on a plane. It may resonate. All the people who love me and how hard this has been for them, the cancer. She took off her cap to show me the damage. It was a shaggy dog of a story by a woman passionate about dogs, touching on a variety of subjects, including her friendship with Tom Hanks assistant Sooki Raphael; Raphaels treatment for cancer; the early days of the coronavirus pandemic; the art and craft of writing; and I kid you not psychedelic mushrooms. We lived in that good world made up of yoga and chemo, the bookstore, cooking, painting, talking over dinner. The Hole Story: The Piddock Clam is a Born Architect. I met an old friend from school who lived up in Harlem and she drove me out. And so I just relied on a book to get me through. 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. Its just. Our newsletter vital information, hope, and healing, delivered weekly. I could have forgotten Sooki altogether in that moment, because even though I followed her story with interest, it was one of many stories. . She was going to be stuck in a chair all day, which was why it was necessary to do it again at night when she got home. Karl was seventy-two. How did she have twenty-eight vials of blood in her? Maybe I would find the fight in me, but I was never much of a fighter. I flew back to New York for two more events, the first one in Connecticut. They were dead, the wires, werent they? Not everyone is like this. And painting and painting. How is it possible? I said as I complimented her again and again. Lets go back to the hotel. She was indefatigably pleasant and warm while maintaining her distance. He shook his head. No one could keep up with her. She couldnt be alone. I thought of her time as precious now. A similar medical trial would begin months earlier in Nashville. Emma and I would be speaking at a librarians convention downtown. We call it the VanDevender Home for Wayward Girls. I dont know why I didnt have the sense to worry, but I didnt. And who wouldnt be given the fact that Raphael didnt really emerge as an artist until her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in November 2018. We shined them into the beds of purple iris that stood tall and straight, untouched. It would be a nightmare.. Most recently, she had a solo exhibition of paintings at ROSEGALLERY called These Precious Days, just like Patchetts piece. Dont go anywhere you wouldnt want to get stuck, a doctor friend had told me. In 1997, she had a recurrence, and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. This is what its like to write a novel: I come up with a shred of an idea. I had just finished my latest novel, and on a lark of the highest order, I sent him an email asking if he might record the audiobook. I dont take notes. Sooki Raphael . Having lost his mom to breast cancer in 2018, he knew he wanted to be extra careful during the pandemic. Sooki washed her sheets and towels, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed. Timeless stories from our 172-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day. Sooki had come to our house thinking shed be staying with someone who was gone half the time and busy the other half of the time. Good, I thought. For what? he asked. She had transferred her life into brushwork, impossible colors overlapping, the composition precariously and perfectly balanced. On the few mornings she didnt come up at her usual time, I imagined her sick, needing something, not telling me because she didnt want to bother me. And this led to you meeting Sooki. She shook her head. She was Batgirl. They both had the coronavirus. Many were introduced to Sooki Raphael through Ann Patchett's book, "These Precious Days" There Sooki's grace, creativity and strength were immortalized though Ann's words. Perhaps you, too, received a link to a 20,000-word story in Harpers last January by the bestselling novelist and Nashville, Tennessee, bookseller Ann Patchett. I was interested in her children. I try to keep all the parts of my life separate.. Marti and I had hitchhiked through Europe together the summer we were nineteen. As lockdown continues, the two women practice kundalini yoga and meditation twice a day. Even if it wasnt a perfect plan, it was better than doing nothing. There is nothing more interesting than time: the days that are endless, the days that get away. I am hopeful and feeling radical. Stranded at home, Karl studied to get his instrument rating as a pilot. The CA 19-9 had gone from 2,100 to 470. She had moved in before the pandemic. In this collection are memoir pieces about her three fathers, one biological, two step which somehow makes you think of Goldilocks and the three bears; about a year of no shopping; about knitting; about sisters; about being nineteen in Paris; and about growing up Catholic in Nashville. Its an honor, really. I had invited someone I didnt know to live with us for an undetermined length of time, and I was leaving the day after she arrived, leaving it all to Karl. As the number spiked this week at 1700 U/L, I ran out of excuses, and my PET scan on Wednesday showed a return of the cancer to my liver. You could sit with us and read if you wanted, answer emails. Click here to dismiss this module permanently. What had been a theorySooki should come to Nashville for her chemowas now a fact. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Five-time GRAMMY Awardwinners and living legends, the Blind Boys of Alabama both defined and innovated traditional jubilee gospel, turning their live shows into roof-raising musical Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and pianist Laila Biali masterfully mixes jazz and pop, bringing virtuosity and unpredictability to songs that are concise and catchy (Washington Smothers Theatre, Pepperdine University 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA. In making the journey to Oz, she had found the strength and clarity she needed to go home again. You cant go home before Sunday., She was serious, but she was also tired, and so I could get her to agree. Now, their friendship lives on in Patchetts latest book which will be released on Tuesday Nov. 23, 2021, entitled These Precious Days: Essays a collection of essays that shares another intimate look at the inner workings of her mind. a link to a 20,000-word story in Harpers, New book relives chaotic 2020 news cycle in a good way, A Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson brings her ancestors out of the shadows, Amazon releases its best books of 2021 list: 'An embarrassment of riches', Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. The first door opened and I walked through. Surely we would take off the Wednesday mornings when she had to be at the hospital at seven oclock. Shes married, I said. PATCHETT: It was so incredible and joyful to be together and to make that kind of a friendship that you make in college, you know, with your roommate, with this total stranger who you are assigned to live with who then becomes your best friend. I called the bookstore and let the staff know that Tom Hanks was on his way over. I dont want to give that up., Youll never have to give up the friendship or the love, I said. Death was the river that ran underground, always. The rain went on for another half an hour, and when it gave up I put Sparky on his leash and the three of us went outside to wander and gape with our neighbors. As the co-owner of a bookstore, I do this sort of thing, and while I mostly do it in Nashville, where I live, there have certainly been requests interesting enough to get me on a plane. PATCHETT: Right. The main character I was certain of starts to drift, and someone Id barely noticed moves in to fill the space. Did Tom even know that Sooki and I were friends? Your hike looks gorgeous and loaded with spiritual component. 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. She picked up and sailed off to the Caribbean when someone needed an extra boat hand. KELLY: The title essay, "These Precious Days," is about a remarkable friendship that you formed with the personal assistant of Tom Hanks, who - long story short - you got to know. Id spent two hours on a stage talking to Tom Hanks, and now I wanted to talk to Sooki. Like, I really understand that I'm going to die, but I don't want the whole novel to be wiped out. Every time her mother turned around, Sooki was gone.. I can never quite hear what the person making the introduction is saying, and for a moment I wouldnt be able to tell you the name of the theater or even the city I was in. The days went on and I could feel Sooki slipping, hounded by her own indecision. She shook her head, scrolling. You will not be called upon to be a good guest. It has to be one of the most extraordinary stories of lockdown how Tom Hankss assistant Sooki Raphael, undergoing treatment for recurrent pancreatic cancer, came to be living in the basement of the novelist Ann Patchett and her husband Dr Karl VanDevender. But have you seen my phone? For a time, the mother in this novel went to India to work for Mother Teresa. Everything was tremendously present tense for Sooki. Travel while staying at home! This is how we arrive at the next chapter of the story. She was the magnet in the compass. Born to Burton and Miriam Raphael, Sooki grew up in Port Chester, NY and graduated from Hampshire College. This was eight hours of hard labor. He knew. It isnt that.. Because then, it won't just be me; it will be the entire world of people in my head. KELLY: Well, it's really, really true, so it was a pleasure to get to say it to you instead of just pining to my book club about how I wish you had another book coming out. When I rely on my faulty memory, the pieces are free to move. Every day Sooki came upstairs looking spectacularembroidered jeans, velvet tops, a different coat, a perfect scarf. dec. 27, 2019: Sweetest Ann, I am traveling todayjust for the dayup to Stanford for a second opinion, with the magicians elephant in my carry-on bag. Or maybe I should say I was coming to know her without knowing very much about her. They arent going to give you her wallet, I said. Shed fallen down some stairs outside of church the night before and twisted her foot and now that foot was swollen and sore. Its a wonderful thing to be able to go back to something thats a couple of years old, see the flaws in the fullness of time, and then have the chance to make corrections and polish it up or in some cases, throw the whole thing out and write a better version., A second theme that emerges is the central role women have played in her life, from her sister, mother and grandmother to the nuns who presided over her K-12 education; the largely female staff of her Nashville bookstore, Parnassus Books; and classmates in college and grad school, including the late poet Lucy Grealy, whom she befriended at the Iowa Writers Workshop and later memorialized in Truth and Beauty., 'Reclamation':A Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson brings her ancestors out of the shadows, Not to say she gives short shrift to men. Farley trained for the NFL draft instead of playing for Virginia Tech, and his efforts paid off. All three of us had lost our fathers, all three of us were close with our mothers. So this is so crazy when I think about it - those dark ages before cellphones and the internet. Surely there was a piece of this story she was leaving out because the next thing I knew shed sailed off with them. 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. lives. Whether she was trying to hold on to her own sense of privacy or what she perceived to be our privacy, I didnt know. It must have fallen off my shoulder when I got in the car. Sooki was a tiny thing, with thick brown hair and olive skin. I tried it but it didnt work. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Ann Patchett about her latest collection of essays, These Precious Days, and how she ended up quarantining with Tom Hanks' personal assistant. Still, I wanted to double-check. I understand the impulse but I also think weve transcended it. A writers life is by definition one of solitude, but Patchett, perhaps more than others, appears determined to wrest incident out of the random details of her busy life as an A-list writer and advocate for independent bookstores. I told her to take her time settling in. Hows the painting going? It was more like a magic trick than someone turning in for the evening. We headed upstairs to lie side by side on our yoga mats, deciding to disregard my friends advice about staying on separate floors. And we were. I cant just stay here forever.. Are you breathing? It was so important, she said, her voice pretty much vanishing in her mouth. I cleaned out the freezer and the refrigerator and at every moment thought, We are so lucky. By the time the playlist had reached Tristan and Isolde, my skull was a horses skull, dry and white and empty. There was my grandmother, my father. Kundalini is nothing if not an exercise in breath, and as it turned out, breath was what Sooki was craving. Email tilts toward the overly familiar. She painted as fast as she could get her canvases prepped, berating herself for falling asleep in the afternoons. Once Im there for chemo, I will find a place where I wont be worried about being a good houseguest. I dont want you to feel like you have to stay downstairs, I said. He's really interesting. People are not characters, no matter how often we tell them they are; conversations are not dialogue; and the actions of our days dont add up to a plot. She's allowed to live in the world, and not be one thing.