HERS Breast Cancer Foundation :: Bras for Body & Soul

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The HERS Breast Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) a non-profit organization, provides programs and services supporting the needs of women and families affected by breast cancer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bras for Body & Soul is a specialty bra shop and extended services for all women, including women who have had breast surgery, in order to make a positive difference in women's lives.

Tributes >> Rumaiza Wojnar

Dec 16, 1954 - Aug 1, 1999
(roo may zuh) n. Pretty, kind and generous.

Those three precious words are more than the English translation of my friend's name. They begin to describe the essence of who she was.

I only knew Rumaiza for ten months but she touched my heart and my life in ways far beyond words. I am President of the HERS Breast Cancer Foundation and although it tears my heart that my dear friend has died, I am honored to create this memorial tribute to her on our website. May it be the first of many such tributes on our webpage--tributes that give voice and vision to those people we hold dear. I want the whole world to know, and be inspired by, Rumaiza.

We met September 28, 1998, seven months after Rumaiza's mastectomy. She came to our shop--Bras for Body & Soul, to be fitted in post-surgical bras and a prosthesis. After being fitted we continued sharing about our lives, our interests, our goals. Her evident depth of heart, her passion for women's well-being and women's lingerie, and her talent in art and design resonated with my own dreams and visions. Two and one half hours later, as I closed the door behind her, I looked around the empty hallway and said aloud: "Whooh...what just happened here? I feel like an angel has just walked into my life." I knew my life would be profoundly touched by this woman. Rumaiza became an instant soulmate in our work of designing beautifully comfortable bras.

At about this same time Rumaiza finished her chemotherapy treatments and felt confident about the new lease on life that was hers to embrace. And embrace it she did. She began each day with quiet time, Tai Chi movements, reading, writing. She also loved to be outdoors and would take long walks each day pausing to listen, to see, touch and smell the beauty and blessing of everything around her. Just weeks before she died she even bought a fountain for her own sacred quiet space in her backyard.

She used to say: "Tricia, if you only knew me before all of this; I was so work oriented and a perfectionist--I loved work but I also was non-stop at it. Work was my identity. Now to slow down, to reflect and to appreciate each moment in life..." Rumaiza had taken the experience of breast cancer to heart, and had let it move her to a new awareness of herself and what it is to be alive. Even though she, and I, and all of us who loved her thought Rumaiza would have many, many years ahead, I know that even those many months were a blessing to her. She spoke to me of her breast cancer as a gift in her life and I think I understand that, even in my grief. It seems that she rediscovered a place of depth and comfort within herself that she hadn't known before, or maybe had forgotten. I have heard similar reflections from other people who have survived a life-threatening experience. In this way, Rumaiza did survive breast cancer because she continued to flower even with it.

Rumaiza wanted with all her heart to live. I wanted, with all my heart, to share life and to share work with her for many more years. I wanted to soak-up her passion for beauty, for art; I wanted to learn more about her home-country Sri Lanka and continue to be inspired by her reflection on life and on her life experience; I was looking forward to the many, many ways that I knew I would flower and grow in her presence.

The photo of Rumaiza in front of the Golden Gate Bridge was taken July 10, 1999 after one of our "bra design" meetings. It was on July 26 that she learned her cancer had metastasized to her liver. She died August 1, 1999 in the loving presence of her husband, her brother and his family.

Rumaiza, I am grateful for the all-too-brief, yet powerful touch of your hand and soul upon me. I pray to be open to the many ways that you might still be present in my life and the life of those who love you. You are still inspiring my life, and my work.

Thank you.
Tricia McMahon