Sometimes it takes something really profound to make you step back and notice the little things in life. And sometimes it takes losing someone really important to make you realize just how precious life is.
For Duke employee Chris Donner, this event was the loss of his wife Lisa to cancer.
"It woke me up to this whole other world. You don't really appreciate what you have and how lucky you are," he said.
Donner, who is an information technology project manager for Duke's Clinical Research Institute, turned his tragedy into something positive and wrote a book entitled Confronting the Cow, that documented his family's struggle with the disease. The title reflects Donner's view of his family as a clover patch being slowly devoured by a cancer cow.
Lisa Donner's two-year fight with cancer began in 1994 when doctors found a tumor in her breast. She had gone in just six months earlier and had a mammogram because she felt a lump, but the technology at the time didn't detect it and when it was finally discovered the cancer was in an advanced stage.
Then began the rounds of chemotherapy and treatments that left her body weak and sent her cancer into remission for only six months before it reappeared in her lungs.
"It was at that point that I really realized that she was probably going to die," said Donner. "That's when it really became real for me. I couldn't deny it anymore."
Donner decided to record Lisa's final months and all the activities and feelings that went along with that experience in his journal.
"I was pretty lost,'' he said. "I would write stuff but it would be really dark.
But when Donner recently decided to turn his entries into a book, he did not want the final piece to sound that way. "I wanted it to be uplifting. I didn't want it to be an angry, mad at the world book," he said.
With the support of his new wife, whom he married last year, and advice from his kids, he was able to reach back to the past and put the book together. "When I wrote this I was finally at a good place,'' he said. "I could sit down calmly and really write it the way I wanted to."
Donner asked his friends and other writers to look over his work and help him make it into the book he hoped it would be.
"My whole mission is to make people aware and not take things for granted," he said. "[Cancer] happens to people all over the place and no one is immune to it."
Donner's motivation also came from his own struggle to find literature about a husband who loses his wife to cancer and is left to raise four young children. And so, Donner decided to write something of his own.
Donner said his book's theme is one of survival. "People do survive tragedies," he said. "Lisa didn't, but the rest of us are still here. Life goes on and you can make the best of it."
One of the unique aspects of the Donner family's battle with cancer was the presence of the children throughout the two year bout.
For Donner, his four children were his strength. "They really saved me more than I helped them," he said smiling. "Their pureness is so powerful."
The book is filled with quotes from the kids as they tried to understand what was happening. "Unfortunately they had to deal with it at a young age," he said. "But it will help them deal with things in the future."
The book features cover art by their son Ben and is a way for the family-especially the children-to keep Lisa Donner's memory alive. "It will be there forever for them. It makes me feel good."
Donner has sold about 600 of the 3,000 copies of the self-published book and has copies in the Regulator and Duke's Gothic Bookstore. "It's worth it already," he said of the frustrating task of writing and publishing the book.
Donner's story has been told in a number of newspapers and magazines and he has received a great deal of positive feedback from others going through similar experiences, quelling his initial doubts.
"I had two fears," said Donner. "One was whether I really had the ability to write... and the other was just putting that personal thing out there. That was a little scary at first."
That's why Donner published the book himself. He refused to let anyone tell him how to remember his wife and the mother of his children.
"It was so personal to me. I just couldn't think of sending it off to someone else."
While Donner admits that he does not understand all of the reasons for his wife's death, he said there has been a silver lining in the dark clouds. "I definitely have a different set of priorities. It made me realize what was really important to me," he said. "I'm a big believer in things happening for a reason."
Now, Donner is moving on, living everyday with a new appreciation for life and family and remembering the past while holding fast to the present.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.