Assisting us in coordinating these awards are four outstanding ladies who are Women of Courage in their own right.

Presenting:

Carla Cash
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/245569/default.aspx

Veronica Davidson
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/vdavidson1972/default.aspx 

Joyce Hyde
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/031849/default.aspx

Pauline Raina           http://community.adlandpro.com/go/301079/default.aspx

Aparna Ganguli         http://community.adlandpro.com/go/blukiwi/default.aspx

Geketa Holman        http://community.adlandpro.com/go/313726/default.aspx

Our Sweethearts of Courage

Shirley Caron http://community.adlandpro.com/go/scaronpoet2005/default.aspx

Michael Caron        http://community.adlandpro.com/go/192260/default.aspx

And Adlands very own man of Courage

John Partington http://community.adlandpro.com/go/114695/default.aspx

WE PRESENT TO YOU OUR TWENTY SIXTH

WOMAN OF COURAGE 

Elisabeth Kubler Ross

July 8, 1926 - August 24, 2004

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a psychiatrist and prolific author.  But most of all, she was a woman of compassion.  She is known for her  ground-breaking book, On Death and Dying. All in all, she authored more than 20 books, many of which have been translated into more than twenty-eight languages.

Born in Switzerland, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross decided upon a medical career early in  childhood. Her journey first began in 1945.  She was a member of the International Voluntary Service for Peace, which organization helped in ravaged communities after World War II.  In Maidanek, which was a concentration camp, she found carved into the walls drawings of butterflies where prisoners had spent their final hours.  These butterflies would become her symbol of the transformation that she believed occurred at the time of death. 

After graduating from medical school at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, she came to the United States. Elisabeth worked in major hospitals in New York, Colorado, and Chicago.  This is where her heart's work would begin.  She noticed the treatment of dying patients and was appalled by the way they were shunned and abused. Nobody was honest with them.  Burdened for these forgotten souls, she made it a point to sit with them, listening as they poured out their hearts to her.

She began giving lectures featuring dying patients who talked about their most intimate dying experiences. "My goal was to break through the layer of professional denial that prohibited patients from airing their inner-most concerns," she wrote.

Her bestselling book, On Death and Dying, 1969, made her an internationally-renowned author. Even today, her trail-blazing book is required reading in most major medical, nursing, and psychology programs. A 1969 Life Magazine article outlining her work gave further mainstream credibility and awareness to this new way of dealing with dying patients. Her work also helped to bring the hospice movement into the mainstream in the United States.

Throughout the 1970's, Dr. Kübler-Ross led hundreds of workshops and spoke to standing-room-only crowds throughout the world. The "five psychological stages of dying" (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance) outlined in her book became accepted as common knowledge throughout the world. As her influence grew, she continued to both learn and teach in many important medical facilities and hospitals.

She assumed the Presidency of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Center and the Shanti Nilaya Growth and Healing Center in the late 1970's, a base from which she gave "Life, Death and Transition" workshops worldwide. She also continued her personal interest in mysticism, the afterlife, and other less commonly-accepted forms of therapy. In the 1980's, she purchased a 300-acre farm in Head Waters, Virginia, to serve as a healing and workshop center.  She named it "Healing Waters."  She went on to turn her focus into helping babies born with AIDS when nobody else wanted anything to do with them.

After a series of serious strokes debilitated her body, and a fire which destroyed her house and all of her belongings, Elisabeth Kugler-Ross left her farm and moved to Arizona to be near her son.  Although at this point retired, she continued to receive hundreds of visitors from around the world, including celebrities such as Mohammed Ali, Susan Sarandon, and Lady Sarah Ferguson. The March 29, 1999 issue of Time Magazine named her one of "The Century's Greatest Minds" in a summary of the 100 greatest scientists and thinkers of the century.

Throughout the span of her life, she continued to encourage students with similar interests, and regularly contributed forwards, chapters, and sections to numerous other authors’ books regarding death, dying, and grief. She was the recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the country. Elisabeth participated in a number of advisory boards, committees and societies, and was one of the founders of the American Holistic Medical Association.

Always outspoken, her work in challenging the medical profession to change its view of dying patients brought about great change and advanced many important concepts such as living wills, home health care, and helping patients to die with dignity and respect.

In the final years of her life, she looked forward to her own quick "transition" and tried to deal with the frustration of helping thousands of people to accept their own death. Never fearing death, she wanted only to follow what she believed, "Life doesn't end when you die. It starts."

Once saying of her impending death, "I am like a plane that has left the gate and not taken off. I would rather go back to the gate or fly away."

By Luella May