Something Is Wrong With Me

I'm not sure when in the sequence of events that presaged three months of unbearable heartache those words were spoken to me by my sister Donna, but it hardly matters; they will be etched in my brain forever.

During that period I encountered so many people who had lost a friend or loved one to pancreatic cancer. The brutal similarity of their narratives reinforced what I knew by anecdote and observation, what I needed no online or professional authority to validate: this cruel disease strikes without warning and carries a death sentence that is swift and inexorable. Which is why Donna forbade her daughter Julie from researching it on the internet.

She exercised regularly, kept herself as slender as a willowy branch, maintained a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, harbored no vices other than coffee and chardonnay, had herself tested for ovarian and breast cancer genes, was indeed a model of perfect health who was skiing at Wintergreen only one week before "things fell apart."

For three months she had complained to our mother of indigestion and mild irritation that reminded her of menstrual cramps, but it was not until February that the discomfort became too severe to ignore.

The initial diagnosis was gall stones, which would require removal of the gall bladder, a routine procedure which I understand general surgeons thrive on. She asked my friend JSG -- formerly Director of the Medical Staff at Centra Health -- if she had a preference.

Her physician was also recommending an MRI, she said, as she sat in my office, her skin now sallow from jaundice. Flashing my instinctive cynicism and unabashed disdain for the misaligned incentives embedded in our health care system, I fired back, "He's just trying to run up your bill." What she didn't tell me -- and perhaps did not know herself -- was that an ultrasound had alerted him to the presence of a worrisome abnormality.

The next few days -- which included an endoscopy performed prior to the planned surgery, now superfluous, and the MRI -- brought us final confirmation that, yes, something was horribly and incredibly wrong.

We discussed her cancer, just as for the past twenty years we had discussed so many other matters, some important, some trivial: business, politics, family, children, sports, books, travels, relationships (mostly mine, since hers was much more stable). Although  miracles had been known to occur -- a whipple operation had enabled a cousin of ours to survive six years after his diagnosis of the same disease -- she knew as well as I, an inveterate pessimist, that her demise was imminent.

As my daughter-in-law's father wrote so eloquently in his second language, "Once we are born, there is only one other thing that is sure, and that is death. Yet we do not even want to think about ours, and when it strikes someone near us, we feel terribly." For many reasons, not the least of which is the sudden awareness of our own looming mortality. And yet, with Donna's foreshortened lifespan squarely in her headlights, neither she nor I could suppress the denial inherent in all existential beings as we simultaneously articulated the same sentiment, although not with the usual exhalation of self-interested relief: "This is is something that happens to other people."

But it doesn't. My father died from lung cancer at the age of sixty-eight, his sister from ovarian cancer in her early seventies. Which prompts the question, "In a family where this disease is prevalent, why her and not me? Or now her, but when me?" For ninety days, as I watched her steady decline, I could not disabuse myself of the notion that only by sheer luck, only by a random throw of the dice -- since an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent prime agent is not part of my world view -- was I not in her place.

And, if one should choose to wander further into this theoretical maze, did her situation alter the genetic odds in any way? Was I now more or less likely to become a victim in the near future? My mother and older son immediately assumed the worst, and have continued to lobby me to expose my body to all manner of preventative screenings, scans, probes, and x-rays to determine if any malicious cells are lurking therein.

This presents a dilemma. Having read credible documentation that not only does the PSA blood test not save lives, it has been the cause of deleterious side effects from the overtreatment of harmless prostate cancers, and knowing physicians who themselves have forgone the test, I instructed mine to do the same for me three years ago. Should I now resume it -- considering that, after what has transpired, I am prone to construe every internal ache, pain, or minor irregularity, such as an upset stomach, as a sign of the big "C" or, as I said to Donna, "f___g cancer."

With two grandmothers who persevered into their nineties and a mother still relatively spry at eighty-nine, as a male and the oldest of three siblings, I naturally expected to predecease my sister, although at a ripe old age. Only weeks before the fatal unraveling, in a conversation that would come back to haunt us, we spoke of retiring -- completely, that is, since I hardly work now -- at seventy, first me, then her two years afterward.

Later, when it became evident that such planning, while useful, is also subject to wrenching disruptions, we lamented that "It wasn't supposed to be this way." No, we had both presumed that Donna would be around to attend to her ailing husband Gary, to her two children, Jordan 21 and Julie 18, to our aging mother -- isn't the daughter the one upon whom those duties always devolve -- and, as an attorney, to all the family's complicated business affairs.

The surreality of this evolving tragedy was epitomized in the Schewel bimonthly corporate staff meeting, which was held on March 4th. For three weeks Donna had been an on-site whirlwind of activity, but what appeared to her colleagues to be the normal daily grind was a furious effort to bring to closure any number of pressing issues or, if that were not possible, to advise her successors on the status of those left incomplete. No one took much notice of her absence -- she thought it best not to be there -- but as one person commented to me after the drama had exhausted us all, "I could sense that something was not right. We rambled through sales, credit, advertising, and turnover, but no one was listening; we were just going through the motions."

"It's been a depressing three weeks," I reported to the group, after the preliminaries had been concluded, "and not just because of the three snowstorms that have ruined business. But bad weather is only temporary. In time, the clouds blow away and the sun comes out. In this case, however, no such relief is in sight. Sadly, I must inform you that Donna Clark has been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer." Someone later reminded me, although I don't recall it, that I added, "She won't be coming back."

If I employ the cliche that Schewel Furniture Company is a special place, I do so fully acknowledging that the frequency of that assertion by other prideful owners underscores its essential illogicality. But of the twenty people in attendance, fifteen had been with the organization for at least two decades, and all had forged familial bonds of affection for each other, and for their boss, Donna Clark.

Following a collective gasp of disbelief which seemed to suck the air from their surroundings, they sat in stunned silence, groping for comprehension and some appropriate language when any was meaningless. A few eyes glistened. And then the room emptied, much as the blood had flowed from their hearts, leaving an irreparable hole.

"I wish I had some better news for you," her oncologist had said, but the scan, a few questions about her symptoms, and a palpitation of her swollen belly and lymph nodes were sufficient to render a subsequent liver biopsy redundant. She had six to twelve months, depending on her choice of and response to treatment. Who would have imagined that he was too optimistic?

"How can you do this, day after day?" I said, swept up in the moment, forgetting that not all cancers are terminal. "It's not the only thing I do," he politely corrected me.

I admired his candor, integrity, and professionalism. When Donna asked him who was on the leading edge of research, he referred her to a trial program at Duke and arranged a consultation for her.

The physician there offered, in Donna's words, "more hope" -- hope that proved to be as illusory as a mirage in the desert. He advised against the trials, which were random. Instead, he proposed a battery of chemotherapy known to produce proportionately better outcomes among Ashkenazi Jews (those of Eastern European origin) than other populations, equivalent to their higher incidence of the disease. She went back a few days later, Friday, for what was intended to be the first of several infusions, at two-week intervals.

Her mood was upbeat on Sunday. I drove up to her house just as a nurse technician was removing the pump that was delivering the last dosage of the three chemicals that would, she had been assured, begin shrinking her tumor almost immediately. I suggested to some friends who wanted to see her that they stop by Wednesday. "She's fine," I said.

They went that afternoon, but neither she nor Gary came to the door. "Where's Donna?" my mother called twice to ask. "I've been over there twice, but no one is home." "Don't worry," I said, displaying my habitual nonchalance about a potential problem. "They probably wanted to get out of the house. Maybe they went for a ride."

They had -- only by ambulance that morning to the hospital. After two days of relative tranquility, her body surrendered to the toxins with which it had been infiltrated. She woke up barely able to walk and passing copious amounts of blood. Although I've since been told that such violent reactions to that intense type of medication are not uncommon, the four transfusions that had to be performed in the Emergency Room indicated to me that she had come perilously close to a premature death.

As she lay in that bed, struggling to regain enough strength to shuffle up and down the hall and to swallow a chicken sandwich -- her oncologist's stipulations for her discharge -- which took ten days, the stark reality -- that there would be no respite from nor temporary deferral of the consequences of her disease -- seized us all finally in an implacable choke hold. Like warriors hoisting a white flag, we opened negotiations on funerals and memorials.

Donna accepted her lot without fear, despair, recrimination, jealousy, anger, or self-pity. How could she do otherwise? How could any of us? As much as we cling to life, we know its finiteness is inescapable.

Her calamitous chemotherapy had convinced her that the disease -- no matter how painful or debilitating -- could be no worse than the putative cure. Her sole objective was to escape all the tubes, tests, nurses, monitors, and needles, which, while succoring her body, were dampening her spark, retreat to her lovely home on Burnt Bridge Road, and die in peace.

Thus commenced the death watch.

I went out of town for a few days, and when I returned she looked so gaunt and sickly I panicked. She may have been motivated to eat that chicken sandwich by the promise of freedom, but either the cancer or the treatment or both had destroyed her taste for food and her ability to digest it. All she could manage was a sip or two of water or ginger ale. What had she weighed at the onset of her affliction? A feathery one-hundred-twenty-five pounds? Now even that was melting away like warm candle wax.

I contacted my children, sounding an alarm that if they wanted to see Donna alive, they had better come quickly. All three did, abandoning spouses, babies, and work to gather at her home to laugh, weep, and reminisce with their aunt who was more like a sister, since they had grown up with her before she had Julie and Jordan. For my daughter Sara, Donna was always her twin.

JSG and I had planned a four-day trip to Key West beginning April 7th. I wasn't even sure we should go, but after we made the commitment, I wrote Donna's obituary and forwarded it to my executive assistant should its publication be called for prior to my return.

Throughout the ordeal, my eighty-nine-year-old mother -- faced with the loss of her only daughter, on whom she depended, she said, for guidance on every decision (while continuing to dispense plenty of advice to me) -- emerged a true heroine, drawing on hidden reserves of vitality, strength, courage, and composure. "Donna's illness has given her a renewed purpose," my son David astutely observed.

From the time Donna was hospitalized until her death, my mother was at her side six or seven hours a day -- sharing memories, trying to feed her the soup she had made, or sitting at the foot of her bed watching her breathe uneasily in her fitful sleep. Too often she could not contain her tears, for which Donna would scold her, but she was unwavering in her devotion.

I couldn't do what she (and Gary) did: linger for hours with Donna as she drifted in and out of consciousness, treasuring every tick of the clock like a precious gem. During my visits, every other day or so, more than a few minutes with her was just too distressing. Small talk doesn't come easily to me anyway. Combining that with an overwhelming sense of helplessness, twinges of guilt (that I should be so hale and hearty while she lay dying), and disgust at the injustice of fate yielded a mindset wholly unsettled.

Although her voice might falter, her spirits never flagged, and she never complained to me. I briefed her on company news, of which, we joked, there was some every day, mainly problems. We chatted about family matters and my daily -- and nightly -- activities. I was encouraged when she had bacon and eggs for breakfast and chicken salad for lunch -- at least a bite or two -- and that, with the help of her caregivers, she could still get out of bed to use the bathroom. Four days before she died we sat with Gary and my mother outside on her back patio to enjoy the May sunshine.

JSG urged me to delve deeper into her psyche. What were her thoughts as life was slipping away? Were there any compelling moments, secret regrets, or profound beliefs she wanted to express? Did she have any instructions for me regarding her children? I danced around the edges of some of these, but she never took the hint.

She answered at least one of the questions two days before she died when she summoned our executive assistant to her home and dictated a letter thanking her family members and coworkers for their lifelong love and support and her friends for the more than two hundred inspirational cards and messages she had received.

I had anticipated that we would be ordering a hospital bed, that she would be reduced to wearing diapers, that she would be demanding increasing doses of morphine as the malignancy progressed. But she remained ambulatory to the end, asking for only an extra pain pill or two. When I went to see her Thursday, her caregiver, Beverly, warned that she had had such a bad day, she feared Donna might not last through the night. I called the hospice nurse, who was more sanguine; she said that the energy level of a patient in her condition ebbs and flows and that her vital signs were good.

Maybe it was for the best that she died early the next morning, eighty-five days after her diagnosis, at the age of sixty-four, and thus avoided an extended period of suffering.

At her Memorial Service, I gave the following testimonial:

"My sister Donna made two requests of me during her last days. One I chose not to honor and one I chose to honor.

"She discussed with Gary what kind of funeral to have, and they decided on a private family burial, which we had last Sunday. Then I asked her to consider a Memorial Service. After thinking about it overnight, she said, 'Don't bother. I don't think many people will come.'

"I guess she didn't realize how many people loved her and miss her, actually have been missing her since March 4th, when she completed tidying up her affairs, typed a memo advising her colleagues how to handle a few unresolved matters, and turned out the lights to her office never to return.

"The second request was made to me two nights before she died, when she was lucid enough for us to carry on a reasonable conversation.

"She said she had a joke to tell me and that she wanted me to use it at the first opportunity. I guess that opportunity is today.

"It's an old joke, and I had heard it before, as some of you may have. But I listened patiently, tried not to give away the punchline beforehand like I usually do, and laughed at the appropriate moment.

"Abe Goldberg is on vacation in Israel with his wife and mother-in-law. Sadly, standing at the Wailing Wall, his mother-in-law drops dead from a heart attack. When Abe goes to the American Embassy with the death certificate, he is told by an official that it could cost as much as $5000 to ship the body back to the States. 'In most cases,' says the official, 'families decide to have their loved ones buried here, since it costs only $500.'

" 'I don't care what it costs,' says Abe. 'I want her body shipped back to the States.'

" 'You must have loved your mother-in-law very much to be willing to pay the difference,' says the official. 'That's not the reason,' says Abe. 'It's because I know the case of someone who was buried here in Jerusalem many years ago and three days later he arose from the dead. I just can't take that chance.'

"It's not often one loses a sibling, a business partner, and his second-best friend on the same day. But I did on May 8th when Donna Schewel Clark died.

"While we weren't close growing up -- how many siblings are, especially if they of opposite genders -- one of my earliest memories as a toddler -- climbing into her crib probably to steal one of her toys or tease her mercilessly -- was perhaps a symbolic precursor of the union we were destined to fashion.

"Afterward, absorbed as I was in books, board games, bridge, box scores, comic strips, and a few close friends with similar idiosyncrasies, I was totally oblivious of her -- as I'm sure she was of me. Her most annoying intrusion into my routine was a daily early morning shouting match with our father Bert as she wrestled with her hair and the combing out of some very tortuous tangles. It was my introduction to two characteristics they shared: volatile tempers and the ability to limit their displays to private situations.

"Even as an adolescent I was too obtuse and distracted to appreciate what a sister two years my junior could really do for me: bring home a bevy of beautiful girl friends -- some of whom may be in our audience this morning -- just more wasted opportunities added to a long list.

"After graduating from Goucher College in 1972, Donna went on to pursue various careers in teaching, journalism, public policy, and law, returning intermittently to Lynchburg for holidays and family gatherings, usually with a new beau. With no children of her own, she became a faithful aunt to my three offspring -- David, Sara, and Matthew -- loving them as if they were her own and encouraging them in all their various endeavors. Perhaps her most memorable contribution to their teenage years was a 1987 manual-shift blue Honda Prelude which was bequeathed first to David, then to Sara, then to Matthew, in whose possession it finally expired, having accumulated over 200,000 miles.

"After moving back to Lynchburg and marrying Gary in 1993, Donna started her own family, nurturing Jordan into an amiable independent adult and Julie into a poised, charming collegiate who also happens to be an accomplished tennis player. Yet she clung to her role as confidante and mentor to a coterie of nieces and nephews that had grown to six with the addition of Jack's three children: Esther, Bert, and Hannah.

"For fifteen years Donna's and Gary's Wintergreen retreat was the extended family's Thanksgiving Day gathering place; no one ever missed it, no matter how far he or she had to travel. The dirty little secret was that while Donna was a wonderful hostess she was always happy to delegate the cooking to Gary, Jack, our mother, and even Julie.

"A family business is a peculiar institution, and if that terminology echoes a nineteenth century evil, the analogy is not accidental.

"Family businesses can tear families apart; after all, who wants to defer to a sibling, cousin, even a parent whom he regards as no more capable than himself and often a rival? But they can also engender powerful feelings of mutual love, caring, respect, and interdependence that might otherwise never be realized. Fortunately, that was the relationship that blossomed over time between my sister Donna and me.

"I'm not quite sure how it happened. I thought she was happy drafting legislation for Congressman Jim Olin. Then she was receiving a law degree from William and Mary. Then she was allegedly practicing law at Davidson and Sakolosky. Then one day I walked up to the second floor of Schewel Furniture Company and found her planted in the one office in the building that actually has a window.

"Sadly, that office is now dark and empty.

"Donna and I evolved into great business partners because we were complementary and not competitive.

"One of the great benefits of being a principal in one's own business is that, once the business attains a critical mass, he can immerse himself in those tasks that interest him the most and delegate or assign the remainder to someone else. That's why Donna and I got along so well.

"I did only what I liked to do -- merchandising, buying, inventory management, advertising, and, as many in this room well know, floor display -- and shoved off on her all the stuff I despised: legal matters, insurance, construction, personnel, and customer complaints. The most amazing thing was that she nodded acceptance, shouldered the load, and came back for more. Maybe she was just grateful to have a job.

"Neither of us was particularly enamored of the sales or credit aspects of the business -- so we hired some really good people to oversee those departments.

"Not everything went according to plan -- at least my plan. Every time I saw her prancing down the hall with that sly grin on her face and her hand cocked on her hip, I knew trouble was brewing. She was supposed to be our in-house attorney; yet whenever we got involved in a contentious labor dispute, why did we always have to retain outside counsel? Early on I turned over to her the responsibility for human resources, and before I could say 'You're fired,' she had amassed a staff of three.

"Most people who know me -- or have worked with me -- might say I'm not bubbling over with warmth or compassion, that I could use a little polish, both on my shoes and personality. Which is why I came to refer to my sister Donna as 'the softer side of Schewels.'

"Why was I always the last to know about the latest scandal, theft, or misbehavior uncovered in a store? Because the bearer of bad tidings was more comfortable talking to Donna. She was empathetic, sensitive, and sincere, an engaged listener, an astute counselor, and ultimately a leader admired and beloved by all.

"But there's another side to the coin, which I foreshadowed when I described her youthful temper tantrums. When it came to making tough business decisions, she could be as hard-nosed as, well, Donald Trump. In fact, although some of my Schewel furniture family may find this hard to believe, in certain situations, I was the jellyfish -- wanting to compromise, procrastinate, avoid confrontation -- and she was the rock.

"Which is another reason I'm going to miss her, my double alter ego -- refining the sharp, angular, intimidating edges of my business temperament while simultaneously instilling in me by her own example the fortitude to take the necessary action, no matter how unpleasant and disruptive it might be.

"And from that symbiosis a deep, abiding friendship fluorished.

"Long before Donna came to work for Schewels I was going through a difficult period in my personal life and had sunk to a level of near depression. Although at the time she seemed more a distant relative than a sister, I identified her as the one person whose mind and heart were open enough for me to unburden myself. I drove to her apartment in Washington, D. C., and we had the longest dialogue we had ever had in our lifetime -- three hours. I left there consoled and emboldened; she was patient, sympathetic, and non-judgmental, and illuminated for me a pathway from self-absorption to self-confidence.

"The soap opera didn't end, but I was relieved of further road trips by Donna's relocation to Lynchburg and Schewel Furniture Company; now she was only footsteps away. We didn't socialize much -- she had her circle of friends and her late-arriving children -- but we reconnected often for a good laugh, cry, debate, story, joke, juicy tidbit of gossip, or book review.

"We were both readers, although my taste was for Texas Inn fare whereas she relished an Isabella's menu. While I consumed mindless mysteries like french fries, Donna preferred contemporary novels of purported literary value. With her irrepressible enthusiasm she was always laying on my desk her latest 'best book I ever read,' which I unfailingly took home so as not to disappoint her and eventually read, since completed assignments are a compulsion of mine.

"Donna was everyone's most ardent cheerleader. She knew how to make you feel good about yourself -- with a smile, a kind word, a compliment, a congratulatory outburst. In my case, she regularly endeared herself to me and cemented her place as one of my very best friends by devouring every word of my monthly voluminous 'occasional piece' blog entry and immediately emailing me or traipsing to my office to deliver a refrain that was music to my ears: 'Oh my gosh, that's the best one you ever wrote.'

"The death of a person we know and especially of a loved one gives us all pause to reflect upon the mystery and meaning of life -- his or hers and our own.

"All lives are collections of stories -- like the ones we will hear this morning about Donna Clark. Some lives follow from their outset a course almost predetermined. Others wend and wind through uncharted territory before emerging imbued with a newly-discovered purpose. And that is the meaning I take away from the amazing life of my sister Donna.

"She had many grand adventures -- college, graduate school, teaching, journalism, public policy, law school, legal practice, romance -- before finding her way back to just about the finest place on earth one could ever hope to live and to her family's furniture business. There she would employ her intellect, insight, grace, and experience to help it thrive, meet the great love of her life, Gary Clark, and embrace and cherish from birth and raise to maturity her two beautiful children.

"Gary can tell you of the obstacles they had to overcome -- mainly a pretentious bureaucrat who thought they were too old to be good parents -- but Donna refused to take no for an answer. She knew no greater joy than the day she tracked him down on the golf course with her eyes shining and her lip quivering and exclaimed, 'We have a chance to get a little girl.'

"Jordan and Julie are the fulfillment she was seeking for forty years before they came into her life. They are her true testimonials. Among many fine hours, they represent her finest."

APPENDIX

Donna Schewel Clark died peacefully at her home on Burnt Bridge Road on May 8th, 2015, after a brief but devastating illness.

Donna was the daughter of Helene P. Schewel and the late Bertram R. Schewel. She was preceded in death by her paternal grandparents, Benjamin D. Schewel and Rae N. Schewel, and by her maternal grandparents, Jacob H. Parish and Rae B. Parish.

Besides her mother, Donna is survived by her husband Gary A. Clark, her son Jordan Schewel Clark, her daughter Julie Schewel Clark, and her brothers Marc A. Schewel and Jonathan B. Schewel. Also surviving are six nieces and nephews -- David B. Schewel of New York City, Sara S. Foster of Ithaca NY, Matthew A. Schewel of Washington DC, Esther H. Schewel of New York City, Bertram C. Schewel of Chapel Hill NC, and Hannah E. Schewel of Greensboro NC -- and a lifelong friend, Lisa Kaplan of New York City, all of whom journeyed many miles to comfort Donna in her final days.

Their gathering at her bedside recalled the many Thanksgivings the extended family celebrated at her and Gary's Wintergreen retreat.

Donna was born in Lynchburg VA on September 14, 1950. Educated in the Lynchburg public school system, she graduated from Goucher College in 1972, and did postgraduate work at Brown University. After teaching in high school briefly in Baltimore MD, she relocated to Harrisonburg VA upon being hired by the Daily News-Record. Her journalistic prowess brought her to the attention of the newspaper's owner, U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr., who recruited her as a legislative aide. She subsequently held a similar position for Congressman Jim Olin.

In the mid 1980's, seeking new horizons, Donna entered William and Mary Law School, received her degree, was accepted to the Virginia Bar, and returned to Lynchburg to practice law at the firm of Davidson and Sakolosky. Ultimately she was unable to resist the lure of her family's business which was also her principal client; she moved across Main Street to a permanent office at Schewel Furniture Company.

In 1993 Donna met and married retired school administrator Gary Clark. Not content to savor their later years in quiet solitary companionship, the mature newlyweds welcomed into their lives and raised to maturity two beautiful children, Jordan and Julie. While Jordan charmed adults and peers alike with his passionate independence and warmhearted sincerity, Julie blossomed into a champion tennis player, bringing her mother much joy as they traveled the Mid-Atlantic tournament circuit together.

In spite of her business and family commitments, Donna found time to contribute her wisdom and energy to a host of community organizations, including the Agudath Sholom Congregation, the YWCA Domestic Violence Prevention Center, New Vistas School, and the Virginia Legal Aid Society. She was a founding board member of the Bank of the James, and embraced the challenges of nurturing this fledgling enterprise from gestation to market prominence.

During her twenty-year tenure at Schewel Furniture Company, Donna was involved in every facet of its operation, including legal issues, lease negotiations, property management, insurance, risk management, strategic planning, human resources, and oversight of key executives. Her steadfast attention to detail and intuitive ability to evaluate individuals and analyze problems were critical to the company's ongoing success. She was a collaborative leader, but never flinched from making the difficult, controversial, yet unerringly correct decision.

But beyond her business acumen, it was her compassionate nature, generous spirit, pleasant demeanor, and moral fortitude that earned her the enduring love and respect of the company's five hundred employees. More than a boss or coworker, she was a friend and confidante, an empathetic listener and a sensitive counselor, whose door was always open to anyone with a personal or professional problem.

The family wishes to extend special thanks to the nurses at Centra Hospice for their assistance and responsiveness, to Donna's three caregivers, Beverly Horsley, Sheena Horsley, and Betty Thompson, for their attentiveness and comfort, and to a dear friend, Liz Piasecki, for her constant devotion.

Donna will be buried at a private graveside service. The family will receive friends at the home of her brother Marc, 3241 Elk Street, on Sunday, May 10th, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. A remembrance of her life will be celebrated on Wednesday, May 20th, at 11:00 AM at the Agudath Sholom Synagogue.

For anyone wishing to honor the life of this remarkable woman, please consider a gift to the newly-established Schewel Foundation, c/o Marc Schewel, P. O. Box 6120, Lynchburg, VA 24505.