Sooki, bareheaded, her silver earrings dangling down her neck. Susan Joan "Sooki" Raphael of Topanga, CA passed peacefully on April 25th surrounded by friends, family, color, light, joy, and love. Whether all of this together was what helped, or whether she had made up her mind to see only the good, I couldnt say. No empty spiritual space. apr. It was a science experiment that could never be replicated. There she was in the passenger seat, a shy person with a quiet voice. They both had the coronavirus. But it turned out to be a good job, and Tom was a nice guy, and the travel was interesting. Still, wasnt it worth mentioning? feb. 14, 2020: PSJust to be clear, I ran all this by Karl first, who said, I favor having her here. (Very Karl.). At her first meeting with Hanks, Patchett also met his personal assistant, Sooki Raphael, whose unusual evening coat, its huge peonies . I was convinced it wouldnt show up and embarked on a full-scale exploratory mission into holistic healing, prayer, juicing, yoga, meditation, sound waves, and magnetic magic (this last one, highly recommended by a friend, but in a clinic run by a reality-tv star). It's about Patchett's unexpected friendship with Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks' personal assistant, which developed when Raphael underwent chemo treatment while living at Patchett's house in Nashville at the start of the pandemic. It was just that we had piled up so much junk to keep from hearing it. Id been in touch with Sooki once or twice when there was talk of a bookstore in Santa Monica, and now I pinned my hopes on her as she dug into Toms schedule at Playtone, his production company. I told him about Sooki that night, but it was equally possible that I wouldnt have. She traveled the world as the personal assistant to one of Hollywoods biggest stars. Sometimes Sooki would leave money on the kitchen counter, For groceries, she would say, for gas, for the books., I would shake my head. By the time individuals walk into the clinic with symptoms like jaundice, weight loss, back pain or diabetes, its often very late in the stage of the disease., RELATED: Increased Thirst and Dark Urine: Researchers Reveal Two New Signs of Pancreatic Cancer As Cases Increase Over Last 18 Years, Detecting Pancreatic Cancer Early Is Crucial. Sooki and I shined our flashlights on the smooth bark of the trees that lay across the streets. I floated upstairs in a world that would not stop changing. But the doctors say, as they expected, the cancer is back, and they are ready to start up chemo again. KELLY: Speaking of friendships that we make in college, early in life when we - it feels like we have all this time to just live in the present, tell me about another essay - "The First Thanksgiving." The other partners in his clinic asked him to stay home and practice telemedicine until there was a better sense of how the pandemic would be resolved. I had never found a way of asking what having cancer had been like for her, or what it meant to so vigorously refuse the hand you were dealt. Id come up with the answer months ago. And so when I looked up dressing, you know, it says, start with a loaf of day-old bread and make cubes. The spring was cold and wet and endlessly beautiful because of it. Are you serious? The three of us were standing, back of the theater in . She was painting. The thought of Tom Hanks benefiting from my assistance struck me as funny, and then I forgot about it. She was teaching at Bennington, in Vermont, and this was the first day of classes. The chemo, the clinical trial, the yoga and the vegetables, the prayers of nuns and all the time to paintwhat if it added up to something? Now I knew several people who were using them as part of therapy. 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. I'll see if I can get her into a trial here in Nashville. The money behind Ron DeSantiss populist faade, What the American Academy of Arts and Letters taught me about death. We at Harper's Magazine are deeply saddened by the loss of our former contributing editor Barry Lopez (1945-2020), who died on Christmas Day.Over the course of four decades, Barry wrote more than a dozen works of criticism, reportage, and memoir for the magazine, all of them informed by the combination of wonder and moral urgency that made him one of America's most beloved . So what are the deadlines, days needed, etc? I wanted to go to bed and read. Many people loved it; some dared to hate it. Its HARD. And I'm always taken aback because it feels a little like asking a parent, who's your favorite child? The world that Sooki inhabited was electrified by greens and blues, purple bougainvillea draping over hot-pink walls, colors too vivid to be explained. I had a concrete reason to be careful about the germs I was bringing into the house. Then Sooki and I went to the kitchen, mixed our pre-measured packets of mushroom powder in with yogurt, and poisoned ourselves. Wait and see. Called These Precious Days(Harper, 320 pp., out of four, out Tuesday) after a line from the pop standard September Song, memorably recorded by another Nashville legend, Willie Nelson, the essay lends its melancholy title to a new collection of essays by one of Americas premier writers. Had we not talked about the part where he stuck around to oversee our health and safety? The next day she brought up the vacuum cleaner to vacuum off her yoga mat. I was leaving for Virginia. I am hopeful and feeling radical. She said she didnt know what she was going to do. Karl and Sooki came in the back door together in the middle of a conversation. She was welcome. It would be another year before I saw my father again, an unimaginable unit of time in the life of a child. ), she developed a deep and lasting friendship with his assistant, Sooki. A few more pages would send me off to sleep, so I went in search of a short story. But by the time Karl and Sooki left for the airport she was happy. The bottom floor of the house is an apartment, separate entrance, no kitchen. They cant do the Stanford biopsy here? I thought he was angry and at the same time I knew my judgment to be flawed. , 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've got mail today, from one of Hollywood's top stars - Tom Hanks. You dont think this is crazy?, I didnt say that, but I know youre trying to help Sooki.. Accuracy and availability may vary. Dear gave way to Dearest. I woke up the dog and the three of us left in the darkness. Shell die, Karl said. Id love to do your audio book! He describes her as "someone who is all that is good in the world.". It meant she didnt have to sit out chemo for a week. Its like a Nol Coward play but not as witty. I told her to take her time settling in. Audience questions arrived on index cards, were read aloud and sorted through. Hows the painting going? We call it the VanDevender Home for Wayward Girls. This is how we arrive at the next chapter of the story. Of course I opted for tattoos. Can you imagine Tom sitting at home saying, I cant believe Sooki used my connections to get into a clinical trial in Nashville?, No, of course not, Im just telling you. We were loaded with plans in those days. She could be a nun. Sister Nena picked up a piece of bread and swiped it through the olive oil in the saucer between us. I hoped he would ask me to join them. There was an important piece of information that hadnt been made clear to Sooki when she came to Nashville; it was that, unlike the FOLFIRINOX, which had carved twenty pounds off her over twenty-four weeks, this course of chemotherapy had no end. Here she was an artist who lived with a writer. My continuous and varied relationship with exercise was an inheritance from my father. I knew how to do that. She owned beauty because she was beauty, and so she could express it on canvass, or in an email to a friend, or in a prayer to the sun.. I was packing boxes, writing cards, and making cheerful videos in which I extolled the virtues of the books I loved. Ann had only briefly met Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks' personal assistant for over two decades, at an author event, but after learning Sooki was in treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer and hoping to be included in a proposed Los Angeles clinical trial, the author devised a plan. Did my character want to be a nun? PGVs (pathogenic germline variants) are changes in reproductive cells (sperm or egg) that become part of the DNA in the cells of the offspring. She doesnt have to go to India. Lets not forget the cancer, I said, and we laughed. Giant hackberries had fallen into maples and split them in half. The phone sat beside her on the table quietlythe prodigal returnedwhile we asked the kind of questions people ask on first dates: Do you have siblings? I never cry, and yet I had plans to do nothing else for the rest of the day and maybe the rest of the week. But I think Ann is the saint in the story. I cant just stay here forever.. It looks like Ill have chemo and maybe a clinical trial ahead. She painted. We had found each other and we would not be lost. 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. It was late and Id just finished the novel Id been reading. Westchester was still a pandemic hot spot and there could be no congregating, even outside. Our hearts have been filled with the comfort his films have given us, and that, coupled with the fact that hes a nice man, made it easy to line up a group of booksellers who were eager to pitch in. Karl is the king of the hospital. Then, we ended up staying in touch very lightly - you know, an email every month or two. I guess you never know if youre the person whos going to look good bald until youre bald.. I wasnt sure why I was negotiating my characters future with my friend, but there I was, listening. There was no hesitation on the canvases, no timidity. Yoga and meditation for an hour in the morning was augmented with yoga and meditation for an hour at night. That night I tried to explain it to Karl. My husband, Ken, will come down for at least part of the time, once Ive started chemo, and I may have other visitors, so I think I will explore some other options in the area, but I cant tell you how touched I am that youve extended the offer. Add a Profile More Hide Episodes Title Year Update Role Assistant: Mr. Hanks Bridge of Spies (2015) Motion Picture Assistant: Tom Hanks Saving Mr. Banks (2013) Motion Picture Assistant: Mr. Hanks Cloud Atlas (2012) Motion Picture Assistant: Mr. Hanks Larry Crowne (2011) Motion Picture Assistant: Tom Hanks She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year after we met. People were sitting in their cars, in their driveways, charging their phones. Sooki Raphael is an artist. Theyve been exposed to it?. Ours was an ephemeral connection common to the modern world. The essay, "These Precious Days," chronicles Patchett's meeting with actor Tom Hanks, who was promoting his first book of short stories, Uncommon Type, and had asked Patchett for an endorsement. Patchett's good-hearted nature is on full display in the title essay of her new book, a portrait of her friend Sooki Raphael, the personal assistant of Tom Hanks. The artist said that the painting was a respectable copy from 1899 and sold for 25 francs (about $2,574 today). They take magic mushrooms together (a good experience for Sooki, dreadful for Ann). There are so many things I understand now, she said. Sooki Raphael: These Precious Days RoseGallery Santa Monica | California | USA Apr 10,2021 - May 10,2021. She had once shown me a picture of herself standing in the surf wearing a bikini, a sarong tied around her narrow hips. Miraculously, after a spate of vigorous exercise there would be enough white cells to slip her in just under the wire. There is a possibility that a $25 painting acquired in 1899 was an original Raphael worth $26 million. 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. I went upstairs to get the scissors out of my sewing basket. Happy to help. She had felt their love and heard their voices while I was hacking up snakes in some pitch-black cauldron of lava at the center of the earth. How is it possible? I said as I complimented her again and again. I didnt know what I would have done in her place, but I imagined that upon getting the news of recurrent pancreatic cancer I would go see my lawyer and settle up my tab with the house. You have to remember.. A friend who was well versed in the experience brought them over early in the morning on Memorial Day. We didnt know each other, and for the most part our correspondence had come after this defining fact. By showing her what her life might have looked like and then sending her home. By seeing what I wanted to see instead of what was actually in front of me. Twenty-five people died in Nashville the night of those tornadoes. It was her only chance of getting back safely anytime soon. Our conversation was continually derailed by the television hanging over the counter. On this visit, we sat in the cramped office at my bookstore and talked about the one he was considering opening in Santa Monica while my dog slept in his lap. I think I know what Im doing when in truth I have no idea. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. He shook his head. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett reviewed. This chemo wasnt the nightmare FOLFIRINOX had been. Writers who do readings at the bookstore are often stashed in the guest room. Im dying, my friend had said to me. And that was so sweet, but what it meant was I couldn't go home for Thanksgiving. And also, she was very low on white blood cells. We danced. Asked to endorse Hankss short story collection,Uncommon Type, and then to interview him on stage during his tour, Patchett first meets Sooki in the wings of a Washington theater. I feel like I could pop into Trader Joes and have them replaced with those happy little stickers they hand out to well-behaved childrenit undermines my confidence in the sophisticated nature of the whole process just a bit. Almost from the moment we finished that first practice, she identified it as part of her recovery, the thing she needed to stay alive. Click, click, click. Im going to have to have my hair cut, she said. Im a vegetarian. The phone had been turned in to airport security. Her California and Tennessee oncologists had conferred so that she could transfer from one hospital to the other without missing a treatment. 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. Sometimes I had to get right in front of her to hear what she was saying. Copyright 2023 SurvivorNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Then as the world was ensnared by a global pandemic, the two friends formed a pandemic pod. In a piece for Harpers Magazine called These Precious Days, Patchett told the story of their friendship and spoke of her admiration for the paintings Raphael created at her home. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Use this bar to access information about the steps in your cancer journey. We did this to ourselves, I said, or maybe I didnt say it. It was the last hour of a long day. I lit the candles on the table and served the cauliflower cake and tomato soup Id made that afternoon. Surely there were sadder things, but none of them came to mind. There is Tom Hanks's deceased assistant, Sooki Raphael, protagonist of the title essay that went viral a few months ago when it was published by Harper's, who had gone to Nashville for her . When undergoing treatment for cancer, looking inward for inspiration can be a very cathartic journey that helps with recovery. Even as Sookis white count continued to hover in the neighborhood of nonexistent, her CA 19-9 cancer marker number (that unreliable indicator we relied on) was dropping. Will time be linear or can it stutter and skip? Do you even realize your life isnt normal? Niki said when I announced my trip. At any point in life. And the only time I ever feel paranoid about death is when I'm in the middle of a novel because I don't want the novel to die. Do you ever miss being alone in your house? she asked me once. Haldane: a great public servant, much maligned, If you spent a day at Action Park you took your life in your hands, Finally: Diamond and Silk are releasing a book, Where are the scents of yesterday? This is what I need, she said, excited. She took off her cap to show me the damage. In the twenty-six years that Karl and I had been together, Id never had the experience of coming home to dinner being made. Sooki left for yoga just as the waitress was bringing our eggs. They were talking like old friends. But everyone showed up, all four hundred of them packed in side by side, every last chair in the ballroom occupied. Then Covid strikes; 2020 is all but canceled and its impossible for Sooki to go home. I was happy, even thrilled, to stop traveling. One morning Sooki had coffee with Sister Nena and me before she went to a yoga class across the street from the restaurant we went to for breakfast. He claims our lives are better for all the people I bring into the house. MRIs! Still, Im able, for a while at least, to pick up the thread and walk it back. Who is she? Just remember, Wednesday chemo left you very sad on Friday and Saturday, so it stands to reason that Thursday chemo will break your heart on Saturday and Sunday. I know that after my last round of chemo I would sometimes get up and eat in the middle of the night, or get up early and make noisy smoothies. Sooki Raphael is a TH Assistant at Playtone based in Universal City, California. I was angry at myself. She loved her friends, and supported them with all she had to give. She helps the poor like Dorothy Day.. 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. I took her to the J.M.W.Turner exhibition at the art museum. Now that things were going right I felt the jolt of just exactly how wrong they could have been. And which, despite several cringe-worthy passages, it is a moving and memorable account of a brief but incandescent friendship. I can fly you up, Karl offered, once her mother was safely home. Ann Patchett one night happened to read a short story by the actor Tom Hanks, surprised by its literary quality. Its not like youre stuck in one place. I would have given her a hug but for the pandemic. Its like youre going home to the Ukraine for the first time in ten years, I said as we loaded up coolers and bags. All that was left was the wall around what had been their garden. I didnt know you had a husband!! 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. I was having trouble with my own volume now. And despite the fact that cancer has essentially been her whole life, Cuozzo has recognized herself as a lot more than a diagnosis by focusing on her life as a mother and an artist. We did up dog and down dog in endless repetition. I pulled up my eye mask. She was the bat squad. I had thought I was writing a novel about a woman who had left her family to go serve the poor in India. Kundalini is nothing if not an exercise in breath, and as it turned out, breath was what Sooki was craving. I could see what they needed and what theyd given me. But our truest means of communication arrived in the form of old yoga DVDs. Who is tom Hanks assistant? Im good. Ive written plenty of jacket quotes in my day, mostly for first-time writers of fiction whom I believed could benefit from the assistance. When it. How it happened is told in the title story of These Precious Days, Patchett's second collection of essays. 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Wed had a very good life. Up and down the street the lights clicked off; our house went dark. lives. Backstage, she met his beguiling assistant. I thought about how extraordinarily famous you would have to be to have someone like that working as your assistant. How did she have twenty-eight vials of blood in her? Before I can start writing a novel, I have to know how it ends. I shook my head. I walked from my hotel to the theater and showed my ID to a guard who then led me to the crowded greenroom. Coping after the loss of a loved one to cancer is never going to be an easy journey. I tried to enjoy it but it was difficult to breathe. PATCHETT: Right. Im still hereat Playtone and in general. One thing led to another chief among them, finding out about Raphaels illness and soon, the movie stars longtime assistant had moved into her house. Sooki and I needed the same thing: to find someone who could see us as our best and most complete selves, writes Patchett. A couple of authors who were scheduled to have events at the bookstore had pulled out. Jessica Everett, a genetic counselorat Perlmutter Cancer CentersPancreatic Cancer Centerat NYU Langone, encourages people in this category to look into possible screening options. All that breathing and twisting and flexing fed her, and the calm voice of the instructor seemed to be speaking directly to her. How had I not asked her all these things before? My husband is a doctor, and I was telling him about this one night. The title essay focuses on Patchett's friendship with Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks' personal assistant, who spent the early months of quarantine in Patchett's Nashville home while receiving. Sooki had had a toucan in college. Plenty of nuns were married before., You never know. Then she looked at me, her face suddenly brightened by a plot twist. I couldnt muster whatever it would have taken to follow her, but I could hear the music fine from where I was, Greckis Symphony No.3, Arvo Prt, pieces I had loved and would love no more. Three blue tattoos on the same plane as my prominent abdominal scar, it would hardly matter. In her last two and a half years, Sooki started painting. Im self-conscious about being in the way, especially if Im not at my best through chemo. A similar medical trial would begin months earlier in Nashville. Her sisters were in, her mother was thrilled. I knew I should sit with her at the table but I couldnt imagine it. Oh, shes darling, Sister Nena said. My friends who had tried it all had positive experiences, new books extolled the virtues of seeing the beauty and connectivity of all life, and there was a chance that this experience, coming so far out of left field, might be just the thing Sooki needed. They had turned off the heat PATCHETT: Or they turned it down to whatever level would keep the pipes from freezing. In case you havent read it, Uncommon Type is a very good book. Sooki and I kept up a sporadic email exchange once the audiobook was done. There was no hesitation on the canvases, no timidity. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. He was watching the weather. I didnt want to be one more person tugging at her coat, but I was. My mother was a pilot, Sooki said, and there she was, suddenly at ease. Yeah. We were still at the beginning then. This is the way novelists think: beginning, middle, and end. Don't have an account? Three time cancer survivor, MariannaCuozzo, talks to SurvivorNet about how art helps her express herself. In 1997, she had a recurrence, and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. In fact we were so exactly in the middle of history that we had no way of understanding what we were seeing.