We want to honor a very special friend/family member/contributor of Tony Foundation. She was passionate about our cause and helping others & she will be missed by so many.
I would like everyone to know what my connection was like with Virginia Malone. We were facebook friends. We were connected through my wife's amazing family (she is Carrie's aunt), but ultimately by a disease that we both battled. Although Virgie and I never met in person (or to my knowledge that is--it's possible with the size of my wife's family- its massive!), we seemed very connected with the timing of her diagnosis. She was diagnosed about the exact same time I started a nonprofit cancer foundation to help others like us. Personally, there were many times in the hosptials where I thought of how I could "Make an Impact" once I regained some sort of normalcy in my life. I think Aunt Virgie was trying to Make an Impact as well when she was spreading the word of my foundation, even while she was sick and facing more treatments. I will never know exactly what she was going through internally and she didn't know what my battles were truly like either, but we shared something in common and we both knew it. The last thing I told her loving son, Steve, before I found out about her passing was to "please tell her Tony says hi and I hope that will put a little bit of a smile on her face." It was not going to change the eventual outcome but the relationships that we have in this world are so valuable and I just wanted her to know that I was thinking about her in that moment. I had a friend during one of my hospital visits leave me a hand written note telling me how I was the strongest person he had ever met. That note still hangs in my office in front of my desk and means more than anything you can ever buy- it all comes down to the way we treat each other, savoring the time we get with our loved ones, and helping each other through adversity. I hope all Virgie's family and friends, who were so much closer to her than I, will always remember the great times spent with her and make an impact for others moving forward. Based on my limited time with her, I think that's what she would want.
Her friend- Tony