Mary Boleyn Foundation
The Mary Boleyn Foundation is pleased to announce the start of donating to the hospice service that assisted her in end-stage CF.
A monthly gift has been established in the name of Mary Boleyn Foundation to:
Hospice and Palliative Care Center of Alamance-Caswell
Further information on the development of the foundation will follow.
Mary’s final words were to me and the world, I love you…thank you! She lived her life with the biggest smile. I am setting up the Mary Boleyn Foundation to honor Mary and provide comfort to CF patients facing end-of-life. We will be having a celebration of Mary’s life on Aug 12th at the old Holiday Inn on Holiday Inn Drive in Cambridge, now called Sunbridge Hotel and Conference Centre. This will be from 11 AM – 1-PM and will be aired on Facebook live. I will post more details this week. Attached is the cover page for the Mary Boleyn Foundation. Please join us and wear something pink. Donations will be welcome at the Foundation this week – details to follow.
No words I write will do justice to the admiration I have for a young woman, Mary Boleyn, who met both life and death head on. Faced with incredible challenges, including cystic fibrosis, Mary was a role model in making unimaginably tough decisions bravely, finding the positive in the little everyday things to appreciate, sharing herself openly and rawly, and radiating love … always radiating love and gratitude.
There is no love greater than the love Mary felt for her young child. My wish is that Clara will derive strength from knowing that love and support in her heart always.
I’m grateful to Mary for the lasting image of pink glitter cremated ashes that she shared recently on Facebook. She wrote, “You know how hard it is to get rid of glitter…. I will haunt you forever!!!!” Glitter will forever remind me of Mary. She will haunt me, in a positive way. She will make me smile, and with gratitude, for the small delights in life.
To her Mom Heather, and her Dad James, as a parent, my heart breaks for you. My own adult kids are close to Mary’s age. The passing of your beautiful daughter has hit many of us hard, particularly in the CF community — a testament to the meaningful impact Mary made on the lives of many.
I am on my way. Here is some of my Angel Dust for all of you. Celebrate my life. I can breathe easy now. Much love to all my friends and family and my heart to Clara, my most precious gift.
When Mary was 9 yrso the Kinsmen of Fergus, Ontario sponsored an event called Coins for Change. The goal was to cover the entire floor of the local hockey arena with coins. Children and adults cleaned out their closets, took bottles back to gather return money, local businesses donated boxes of rolled coins from the bank that took a team of volunteers to unwrap and place carefully on the floor. Mary wanted to thank the local Kinsman for their sponsorship. Her hand written notes about having CF (Cystic Fibrosis) or as Heather Summerhayes Cariou entitled her book, Sixty-Five Roses follow. This is the essence of Mary’s spirit and Force of Purpose, Driven Against All Odds.
Mary, you are making the change you wanted to see in the world. Good you!
I will be updating this post with these words in a more legible form.
July 16, 2017
Mary arrived to much excitement at Raleigh-Durham Airport. We had everything prepared at the house for her stay. We prepared a king-sized bed with separate bathroom, all her favorite foods (M&M Peanuts) and drinks (Kool-Aid – Grape), apples with peanut butter.
As soon as we got to the car, Mary insisted on opening her suitcase to show us two paintings she brought us. One by Clara and one by her.
