The radiation center in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I go for treatments, is giving out a pinup calendar. This one is pretty cute. It’s called Pinups for Purpose and features local breast cancer survivors as models.*

Like most people, I choose a calendar based on the photos used at the holidays and on my birth month. Imagine my surprise when I flipped to the month of August and saw a male model! His name is Burt. He’s standing in a stream holding a fishing rod. And he’s just snagged a silver-polka-dotted pink bra.

The photos are the work of Jeanette Vonier, a photographer whose mother is a two-time breast cancer survivor. Ms. Vonier has posed her subjects in 1950s vintage settings because, “The women in vintage pinups seem to retain some innocence. They find themselves in common situations that everyone can relate to with humor.” Money raised from the calendar’s sale is given to many charities. Two of these are: “To Celebrate Life Breast Cancer Foundation” and the “Sutter North Bay Women’s Health Center.”**

There is a short biography of each of the models at the beginning of the calendar. What strikes me is the common thread running through their stories. One woman sees cancer as the “biggest gift” of her life, forcing her to slow down and take stock. Another talks about it being a “gift of time, awareness and empathy.” Still another views it as a “positive and life changing experience.”

I keep thinking of something I just read in the book Breast Cancer - The Complete Guide. The authors, doctors Yashar Hirshaut and Peter I. Pressman, write, “No sane person would choose to have breast cancer or, having had it, would say it was an ennobling experience.” I’m mystified. How can one look back on breast cancer as a “gift.”

I suppose we all want things to happen for a reason. What if getting cancer is just bad luck? Some might say it happened “to make one a finer person.” Well, what if one was a pretty fine person to begin with? Or, perhaps it happened so one would learn to “stop and smell the roses.” Hey, I’ve stopped for plenty of roses over the years. Nope, at the moment there seems to be no rhyme or reason for having been stricken with breast cancer. Maybe, when time has softened the experience, I will see the why of it. I suppose that I, too, would like to think it happened for a reason.


*Pinups for Purpose: http://www.pinupsforpurpose.com/

**To Celebrate Life Breast Cancer Foundation: http://www.tocelebratelife.org/

**Sutter North Bay Women’s Health Center: http://www.ucomparehealthcare.com/