My mother passed away on Friday, August 21. This article from my hometown paper, the Woodstock Times, celebrates her life. Feels appropriate to blog it, for posterity and for friends to know what my mom was all about. Though if this is the first time you are hearing the news, sorry that it came in such an impersonal way :(
LIVING AND DYING WITH GRACE
Joy Hopkins-Hausman passes on
by Andrea Barrist Stern, Woodstock Times
Joy Hopkins-Hausman, 61, of Woodstock, whose name has been synonymous nationally with breast cancer support advocacy for more than two decades, died on Friday morning, August 21 at Benedictine Hospital.
After developing breast cancer in the mid-1980s, Hopkins-Hausman brought new dimension to survivorship, combining conventional treatments including a mastectomy, breast reconstruction and chemotherapy with complimentary approaches like support group therapy, acupuncture, yoga, nutritional counseling, vitamin therapy, meditation, and basic laughter at a time when such regimens were still far outside the mainstream.