Sometimes, life can be a ruthless bastard. Your dad could drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of a bike ride. Your best friend could be diagnosed with cancer. This stuff isn’t fun to think about, and it’s even harder to talk about. That’s where Emily McDowell comes in.
McDowell — a creative director in advertising in another life — left her Don Draper-like career behind to start her own Etsy shop, which eventually morphed into a full line of greeting cards. A survivor of Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma, McDowell went through nine months of chemo to beat the disease when she was 24 and has been in remission ever since. But she remembers how difficult it was for her and the people in her life to express themselves while she was battling the disease.
And so, Emily McDowell Studios has launched its “Empathy Cards for Serious Illness” line:
Most of us struggle to find the right words in the face of a friend or loved one’s major health crisis, whether it’s cancer, chronic illness, mental illness, or anything else. It’s a really tough problem; someone we love needs our support more than ever, but we don’t have the right language for it.
I created this collection of empathy cards for serious illness because I believe we need some better, more authentic ways to communicate about sickness and suffering. “Get well soon” cards don’t make sense when someone might not. Sympathy cards can make people feel like you think they’re already dead. A “f*ck cancer” card is a nice sentiment, but when I had cancer, it never really made me feel better. And I never personally connected with jokes about being bald or getting a free boob job, which is what most “cancer cards” focus on.
If greeting cards don’t do the trick, don’t forget that Everyone’s Fantasy Boyfriend Joseph Gordon-Levitt already made you a movie that could have been called How to Deal With A Loved One’s Cancer Diagnosis For Dummies.
(Via Boing Boing, Emily McDowell)