This month, my thoughts turn to those who’ve fought breast cancer — like my brave sister-in-law | Opinion

As we enter the second week of October and Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am thinking of all the people that I know, who are either suffering from cancer or who have survived it.

My dear sister-in-law, Valerie Johnson, is a survivor. I mention her because she is one of the most positive and one of the bravest people I know. Val, as we lovingly call her, comes from a family where breast cancer is a frequent, and unwelcome visitor. She lost her mother, two sisters and most recently a dear niece to the dreaded disease.

When nearly two years ago she was diagnosed for the second time in nearly 20 years, with breast cancer, it came at a time when my brother Adam, her husband, was also diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was an uneasy and scary time for our family. Yet Val took on the challenge of battling her cancer, as well as my brother’s cancer like the trooper that she is.

I don’t think I ever heard a discouraging word from Val, nor did I ever see her looking depressed. She didn’t seem to have time for anything negative added to her life. And so, she looked the cancer straight in the eye and went to battle.

I love her for her strength and for the way she wouldn’t allow my brother to become depressed. As a volunteer for hospice, in Melbourne, Florida, where they live, Val made my brother become a volunteer, too, taking him with her when she delivered medicines to hospice patients, and making him stay involved in his Vietnam Veterans organization.

Val is vigilant, too. One day while she and my brother were sitting together on their patio, she noticed that a mole on his forehead had grown and demanded that he make an appointment with his doctor to have it checked out. Sure enough, it was cancer, but it was caught in time for surgeons to remove it completely.

She did all this while she, herself, was cooperating from a double mastectomy. She had barely healed when her sweet niece Dawn Dixon’s cancer returned, and she later passed.

As I watched how Val handled the loss of her niece, who was more like a beloved younger sister, while fighting her own battle, and leading my brother through his cancer battle, I was so proud to be her sister-in-law. Although she is married to my brother, she is more like the sister I never had.

I am thinking a lot of Val a lot right now. I guess it is because it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And because I know how brave, and smart she is, and how much she gives to others to help make their life brighter, and still finds the time to be a doting grandmother.

I am almost 10 years older than Val. But when I look at her and see how brave and positive she is, I want to be just like her, when I grow up.

Hadassah Walks for Breast Cancer Awareness

To the women of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Breast cancer awareness is not merely a cause. It is a movement that brings communities. So, on Oct. 22, the organization will host its Second Annual Hadassah Walks for Breast Cancer Awareness.

While the event will be held throughout Florida, the Hadassah Greater Miami’s walk will start at 8 a.m. Oct. 22, from the Aventura Branch Library, 2930 Aventura Blvd. Registration opens at 8 a.m. and the program starts at 8:30 a.m..

Featured speakers will be Dr. Ragisha Gopalakrishnan and Dr. Sumana Narayanan, renowned oncologists from Mount Sinai Medical Center. The doctors will share insights into breast cancer awareness, prevention, and treatment.

Aventura Mayor Howard Weinberg, and City Commissioner and breast cancer survivor Amit Bloom, will kick off the walk as Grand Marshalls.

All proceeds from the walks will be used to support Hadassah’s mission of advancing healthcare, education, and women’s rights in Israel and around the world.

To register for the Aventura walk, go to: Events.hadassah.org/GMRBCWalk23.

Leslie Meek is appointed a federal judge

Congratulations to former Miami attorney Leslie A. Meek, who was recently became an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Nominated by President Joe Biden, Meek’s investiture ceremony was held on Sept. 22, at the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse in Washington.

Meek is the daughter of Lois Capp and Dr. Larry Capp. Her father is a former public administrator and psychologist with Miami Dade County.

Meek earned her juris doctorate from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1990, and was later recruited and appointed by the late Janet Reno, then the State Attorney for Dade County (now Miami-Dade County), who later became the U.S. Attorney General during the Clinton administration.

In addition, Meek has worked as an assistant attorney for the city of Miami, and as assistant general counsel for the Comptroller of Florida. She also served as general counsel for the United Teachers of Dade County.

The ex-wife of former Congressman Kendrick Meek, she relocated to Washington in 2002. She served as an administrative law judge from 2006 to 2014 with the District’s Department of Employment Services. She was appointed a judge in the District’s Office of Administrative Hearings, where she ruled on unemployment compensation cases.

Meek is the mother of Lauren, an artist and fashion designer in New York, and Kendrick, Jr. , a recent graduate of the University of Miami Law School, currently working for a local law firm.

Bea L. Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com