Joji d’vivre: A loving life relived and celebrated

At a meeting last month between a breast cancer patient, her parents and other close family members, and her team of doctors, the oncologist called the malignancy a “blessing.” The term would presumably lend a positive perspective, and that hopeful attitude could help fight cancer, which tends to thrive on stress and despondency.

An unyielding joyful outlook helped keep another sufferer, this writer’s cousin Joji, alive for the full six years, which physicians said she had to live after malignancies were found in her colon. This week the “blessing” of wayward cell growth claimed Joji’s life. After turning 58 last month, she “passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her loving family,” as published in the obituary in The West Australian newspaper, mercifully ending months of agony, painkillers and interminable waiting.