Strangers have donated more than $125,000 to best friends who shared their heartfelt breast cancer story |
When Candace Eng and Diana Prince met in college 50 years ago, they had no idea they would become besties. It’s a friendship that has been both life-changing and life-saving for them.
The friends were recently walking in New York City when they were asked whether they were best friends by Seth Clayton of Besties NYC. Candace revealed her breast cancer diagnosis and the support Diana has given her throughout it in the now-viral video. The emotional clip reached millions of people, inspiring many to donate to Candace’s cancer treatment.
“We have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support and kind comments,” the friends tell Upworthy. “Total strangers come up to us saying how much they have been touched by our genuine friendship. It’s amazing how many people just hug [us].”
View this post on Instagram
The story of Candace and Diana’s friendship
“We met in September 1976 at Manhattan Community College, in an English class,” they tell Upworthy.
They sat next to each other and exchanged numbers to keep in touch. Food brought them together after Candace and her mom invited Diana to lunch, where she was introduced to Chinese food for the first time. From there, their friendship grew.
Candace began modeling and introduced Diana to the process. With shared modeling experiences, the two decided to start a tradition of spending holidays together. They both eventually married, and Diana moved to Connecticut. Candace had her son in 1989, with Diana following with her first son in 1992. Although their lives were busy, they still saw each other for the holidays.
“As the boys aged, we started to get together more often and were always on the phone,” they share.
Candace’s breast cancer diagnosis
When Candace learned she had breast cancer, she immediately called Diana. Diana’s mom had cancer and suggested Candace get a second opinion. She learned her cancer was worse than the original diagnosis, but it was still in an early stage.
“We went to all appointments together,” they share.
After Candace’s mastectomy, she spent her time recovering at Diana’s apartment. Her treatments have included chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy, and Diana has been by her side every step of the way.
“I know that if the tables were turned, Candace would be there in a heartbeat. Her love and friendship are totally unconditional,” Diana says. “Candace is a very giving person, to a fault, never thinking of herself.”
Strangers raise money for Candace
Many people were touched by Candace and Diana’s friendship, and a GoFundMe was started by Diana’s husband, Kevin, to help cover Candace’s care and treatments.
“She is facing all of this from public housing, on government assistance, food stamps, and Medicare,” he wrote in the GoFundMe. “She has spent her life on the bottom rung, and now she’s fighting the hardest battle of that life with almost nothing in her pockets.”
View this post on Instagram
Thousands of generous people donated, raising more than $125,000 to help support her.
“I want to pass on to others in need just how much total strangers have buoyed my spirits,” says Candace. “I am a changed person who has gained self-confidence and believes in herself now. If we can change people’s lives, we will be happy. The experience of strangers wanting to have or give us a hug is amazing. We both realize how important touch is and how healing a simple hug or touch on the arm is to all of us.”
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60 countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Shop or donate at your local Habitat ReStore
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Visit habitat.org/open-door to learn more and get involved today.
People have been struggling with imposter syndrome, or the deep fear that others will discover you’re a fraud, forever. The fear says that despite all the evidence to the contrary, you are a failure and are faking competence at all times.
Though the term wasn’t coined until the 1970s, even one of the greatest American novelists of all time suffered from severe self-doubt: F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It took Fitzgerald nine years after the release of The Great Gatsby to publish another book, and even still, he wasn’t confident in it. So, he wrote to a friend for advice: None other than Ernest Hemingway.
If you’re looking for advice on how to defeat self-doubt and imposter syndrome, look no further than the words of wisdom written between two of the greatest literary minds of the 20th century.
Hemingway gives Fitzgerald some much-needed tough love
The Great Gatsby, today, is considered one of the great American novels. However, when it was published in 1925, the reception was lukewarm.
“Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud,” one newspaper headline read.
Partially as a result, he fitzed and fussed over his next novel for years. He also struggled with mental health, his marriage, and alcoholism during that time. Finally, though, he followed up Gatsby with Tender Is the Night in 1934.
By all accounts, Fitzgerald was not happy with the book, even though he had wanted it to become the best American novel of all time—an awful lot of pressure for anyone to put on themselves. He worried he’d never write anything as good as Gatsby again. He asked Hemingway for his opinion, which Hemingway gladly delivered in a way that only he could:
“I liked it and I didn’t,” Hemingway writes, bluntly. He goes on for paragraphs about all the ways the book is lacking before softening. “It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.”
Hemingway’s advice to F. Scott Fitzgerald on how to ignore the critics, including himself
Though Hemingway chastised Fitzgerald for taking too many liberties with the story, “cheating,” and stuffing the novel with “good stuff… that it didn’t need,” he ultimately writes to console his friend.
Or, as some would say, his “frenemy.”
“For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. You feel you have to publish crap to make money to live and let live.”
It’s brilliant advice. One way of conquering imposter syndrome is positive thinking and affirmations: “I do belong.”
Another is to realize that everyone else around you is just making it up as they go, too. And that’s the point Hemingway is getting at. Even he, who had written The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms by this point, admits that most of what he writes is trash.
A wonderful, if harsh, pep talk. But Hemingway isn’t finished:
“Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvellous. You know I never thought so much of Gatsby at the time. You can write twice as well now as you ever could. All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is. … Go on and write.”
Modern psychologists’ advice has plenty of overlap with Hemingway
In parts of his letter, Hemingway urged Fitzgerald to stop feeling bad for himself and to channel his pain into his best work.
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it.”
One evidence-based strategy for overcoming imposter syndrome is coming up with what psychologists call a “post-mistake compassion plan.” It’s a strategy for moving forward with confidence after screwing up. That’s what Hemingway was trying to help Fitzgerald do; recognize that Tender Is the Night was perhaps not his best work, but that he was more than talented enough to get off the mat and come back stronger.
No one is perfect, and falling down doesn’t mean you don’t belong.
In the end, it’s hard to say if things did get better for Fitzgerald. LitHub writes, “he ended his too-short life doing Hollywood hack work to make ends meet before dying, largely forgotten, his final novel left unfinished. His life has long been viewed as a classic........