My Great Aunt Lucille was a vibrant, vivacious, fun-loving, woman who I never had the pleasure to meet.  Sixteen years older than my mom, she was a glamorous free spirit at a time when women were still tethered to stifling conventions.  She loved practical jokes, like a tack on your chair or a splash of ice water when you turned off the shower, and would roar with laughter when she pulled one off.  She loved men and men absolutely ADORED her!  Samantha Jones like, she was a cougar 50 years before the word even existed and had multiple relationships with men both older and much younger than herself!  Aunt Lucille sparked a sexual revolution long before the 70’s!  Her sister, my more conservative maternal Grandmother would scoldingly say “You’re just like your Aunt Lucille!” Yet all the men in the family, including my father, get a dreamy faraway look in their eye and it’s a wink wink nudge nudge when they mention her name!  My Mama says that when she first started dating my Dad that he was so gaga over Aunt Lucille that everyone thought he was dating her!  I recently showed a family friend, who had had a relationship with my Aunt Lucille, pictures of her from around the time he had dated her 50 years before.  The look on his face when he saw her pictures was one of the most moving moments I have ever experienced.  He looked at the pictures with such delight and reverence that you could tell that he had truly deeply loved her.  Or at least, really enjoyed her!    I hope some man will look at a picture of me with half as much reverence as that thirty years from now and that I spark even a smidget of that kind of happy memory in any of my past lovers!  It was truly a look to behold!

I have always felt a special bond with Aunt Lucille and been told a dozen times by assorted relatives that I am just like her and that we would’ve adored each other.  She was the original That Girl At The Party! Unfortunately, I never got to meet her as she was robbed of Life in her early forties by lupus, a disease that at the time was basically a death sentence.

While today people can fortunately live with lupus, it is still a robber baron stealing the vitality out of people’s lives. Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy tissue.  It causes life-threatening damage to major organs such as the kidneys, heart, lungs and central nervous system, as well as, the brain.  1.4 million Americans are affected by lupus with 90% of those diagnosed women in their childbearing ages.  It is the leading cause of death among women with autoimmune diseases.  There is no cure and, as of yet, no known cause.  It disprortionately strikes women of color with African-Americans a full two-thirds more likely to develop it.

I attended the ALR Walk With Us to Cure Lupus kick-off luncheon at Cipriani’s to hear more about the disease and where researchers are in terms of a cure.  While nowhere near a cure, there have been a lot of amazing breakthroughs and promising insights into the causes made.  Newscaster Brenda Blackmon had us all in tears as she recounted how her daughter was suddenly struck with the disease and almost died when it spread to her brain.  Fortunately, her daughter pulled through.  I also met three lovely ladies at my table who are living with lupus and was moved by their courage.

On October 24 at Battery Park the Alliance for Lupus Research will hold their Annual Walk With Us To Cure Lupus at Battery Park.  100% of all the proceeds from the walk will go to biomedical research, which holds the key to curing lupus.

Please join in and help the fight for a cure.   For more information on how to register for the walk and/or donate to the cause go to:  www.lupusresearch.org.

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