Stephanie Girard might appear to live a charmed life. Tall, well-spoken, with athletic good looks, she has spent her career as an art director and set designer for the movie industry. She has a wide circle of family and friends, a husband who adores her and a home in Celebration, one of the loveliest 'burbs in Central Florida.
She is also dying.
In December, Girard's doctor gave the 49-year-old just months to live — this, after a brutal five-year battle against colon cancer in which she has spent more time undergoing chemotherapy than not.
"Ever since I was little, she has always helped me see that … life is for enjoying, not wallowing," says Stephanie's stepson, 25-year-old Scott Girard Jr., a lieutenant in the Florida National Guard now serving in Kuwait. Just days after Stephanie got the grim news, he had to ship out and is not scheduled to return for a year. "While most people in her shoes might wallow away in a depressed state, she has made the most of the time she has."
Given her prognosis, Girard chose to undergo still more treatment in hopes of postponing the inevitable. But there was another, more pivotal decision to make: What would she do with the precious time she had left?
Instead of pursuing exotic travel or luxury, Girard chose something that might save people she has never met from her same fate. Ultimately, her "bucket list" came to contain a single mandate:
Raise $25,000 for the American Cancer Society by May.
"Honest to goodness, I just pulled that number out of thin air," she says. "I thought it sounded so ridiculously big. And I thought, ‘Man, if I get to $10,000, I'll be happy.' "
But the outpouring not only passed the 10-grand mark within the first month, largely from $50 and $100 donations; it also came in ways she didn't expect. The woman who never wanted to be in the spotlight started talking openly about her disease in a manner that captivated listeners. She gave a few speeches, clutching her notes to keep from panicking, set up a donation page on the Web and e-mailed dozens of friends and acquaintances, asking them to share her story with others.
To hundreds, maybe thousands, who heard of her, Girard has become a lesson — not in how to die with grace but, rather, how to live.
"When I first heard her talk, I was blown away," says Dulcy Murchison, who has done the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life fundraiser in Celebration for the past two years. "She just exudes this openness and positive attitude so you don't feel sorry for her. You just think, ‘What can I do to help?' "
At last year's Relay for Life — the overnight event in which teams of volunteers take turns running and walking laps for pledge money to the cancer society — Girard was Celebration's top fundraiser at $14,000. It was nearly 10 times what the biggest contributors usually bring in and nearly 100 times the more typical amount.
To raise $25,000, says Rebekah Swyers, an ACS community representative, would be "very, very rare."
"The primary reason I'm standing before you today," she said at an American Cancer Society Relay for Life fundraiser last year, "is because of the many caregivers who have stepped into my life.
Do you have an inspirational story that you would like to share with the YourCause.com team? Write us at info@yourcause.com.
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