Cindy Dyas Award of Heroism
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell showed that the archetypal hero story always began with an Everyman just living his hum-drum life. Suddenly and unexpectedly, either by chance or by choice, Everyman is pulled out of his ordinary life, or chooses to leave his ordinary life, to launch into a great adventure whose ending he cannot know at the beginning. Through the adventure the hero is always challenged to his limit; but, in the end, the hero “gains his reward” and is forever changed by the experience.
A 35-year-old mother of three young girls when she was diagnosed in 1991, Cindy Dyas was pulled into the world of breast cancer and began a journey through the ever-evolving maize that is cancer treatment. Her first goal was to raise her daughters. She was determined. Striving for this goal, she was on the front line of the fight – among the first to try bone marrow transplant, Taxol, Herceptin, gamma rays!! Each time her cancer disappeared, it returned. But she kept on fighting and, with each new treatment, brought us closer to a bigger goal -- a cure for breast cancer. Cindy Dyas has forever changed those in her life by her true heroism.
Through it all, Cindy raised her girls and tirelessly gave her time and energy to the cause of breast cancer. She was a wonderful role model -- as wife, mother, friend, survivor, woman.
Cindy lost her battle on Friday, December 16, 2005. She was 50 years old.
2005 Recipient: Cindy Dyas
