The Education of Dee Dee Ricks

Synopsis: The Education of Dee Dee Ricks is an intimate and passionately told documentary chronicling how a successful businesswoman and mother’s life changes dramatically.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Dee Dee sets out to make life easier for less fortunate cancer patients.
source: site

It's hard to watch films like this because cancer is such an ugly disease and it affects so many of our lives.

I am guessing that there are more people in this world that have been affected by cancer more than any other disease out there. I have been affected at least 3 times by people I have been very close to and it still feels so random and unfair.

Now that I am getting older I have started to think about death from a different perspective. There are possibly fewer years between today and death than today and birth. It has been roughly 40 years between birth and now and I'm not quite sure if I will live 40 more. I might potentially even be right in the middle of my life but I am really hoping that if I were to live that long that it would be a life of good health and energy. Currently, this is a big concern for me.

Dee Dee Ricks is around my age and this film hit me in a way that rarely hits me. Not too long ago, another acquaintance from high school started posting her fears after getting diagnosed with Breast Cancer on facebook. This was shortly after my first love had died of lung cancer so I really wasn't able to witness too much of what was going on with her. I was scared somehow that I would be next. Every now and then I have the thought that cancer could hit me without warning like it did to my peers, but then I think..."I'm too young, I'm too healthy, I quit smoking, so I'm fine."

If there is one thing I was reminded of after watching this documentary, it was that there is no such thing as "too young, too healthy." Cancer seems random and generous to who it befalls itself upon.

I hope to one day have the courage to step over the line of fear and help this community in whatever way I can.