Amid all the hoopla of the Final Fours, the weekend brought a tough reminder that the real world rolls on.
Yale ice hockey student-athlete Mandi Schwartz died Sunday after fighting a tough two-year battle with acute myeloid leukemia.
The Yale community closed ranks around Mandi throughout her struggle. As of last September, bone-marrow drives on her behalf had added more than 4,200 people to donor registries in the United States and Mandi’s native Canada.
Like so many cancer victims, Mandi’s was a tale of hope, followed by disappointments, followed by renewed hope. But when she learned in December that the cancer had returned, you had to be concerned that this wasn’t going to end well.
The fact that she motivated 4,200 people to register for bone-marrow registries, however, raises the possibility that another cancer victim down the line might have a survival chance that previously didn’t exist. If only we could all make such a difference.
