Second Acts that Change Lives

Deborah Morosini, M D , 49, Weston, Massachusetts

Act I: Regional sales manager for a textile firm in New York City; Master’s degree in social work.

Act II: Medical school; research and development pathologist; wife to Charles and mother of sons James and Peter.

Act III: Champion and crusader in the war against lung cancer; board member for the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, traveling the country to bring her message and champion a cure.

Life before the Leap

Deborah will tell you that every day is a second act, that there are many second acts. She knows firsthand, because she’s had about five of them.

All through her childhood and early careers, she had pursued all things “right brained,” she acknowledges. She had a dream job as a social worker that went with her image of what life in New York City is supposed to be about. Then, she became a sales manager for an architectural fabric company  —  Gretchen Bellinger  —  in the Big Apple.

But that wasn’t enough.

The tugging for Deborah was to “develop parts of myself that I had not used  —  the extremely logical and fact-based parts of my brain that were dormant.”

She began medical school part-time at night, while she worked her full-time day job in sales. “I had no science background, so I had to start from the very beginning with very basic math,” she says.

“It all happened in such a public way,” says Deborah. “Being stuck at an airport with the TV news repeating it over and over was just not a great place to be. It was devastating.”

Standing on the Edge

Seven months later, Dana, tireless crusader for paralysis, mother extraordinaire for her son Will, and Mother of the Year for the American Cancer Society, would lose her battle with lung cancer. A nation, glued to their televisions again, would express their shock and mourn deeply the loss of Dana, whom they had come to embrace as the epitome of a woman filled with grace, courage, and determination.

“Life isn’t supposed to happen the way it did for our family,” says Deborah. “Chris had died. My mother had just died, and now Dana was diagnosed with lung cancer.

“I realized then that you become a survivor the moment you are diagnosed. You decide right now this is all happening, but my sister is still alive, yes she is really sick. But we need to live in the moment. She is still here and we need to put our worries aside.”

The Liftoff

Certainly, Dana and Christopher Reeve had become public icons of survival and inspirations following the 1995 horseback-riding accident that left Christopher a vent-dependent quadriplegic. Together, with their laserlike focus on paralysis

So, when she’s not at work researching cancer as a pathologist at AstraZeneca or taking care of her two teenaged sons, Deborah has made it her life’s passion and mission to speak to audiences, legislators—anyone who will listen  —  about the terrible tragedy of her sister’s death, the effects of lung cancer, and the lack of available treatment for it today.

Beyond fighting to raise awareness about lung cancer, Deborah says one of her most important roles is to carry her sister’s indemonstrable spirit for living fully to the world. And she has no intention of fading away from whatever challenges lie ahead.

“I can’t speak enough; I can’t do enough, until we’re taken seriously and the tragedy of lung cancer is over,” says Deborah.

Deborah is ready to forge ahead.

Words to Inspire

“My sister and Chris created a positive legacy. They showed the world that out of crisis, you can make a life; you can have a sense of humor and not fall apart. They touched so many people . . . people including myself, who maybe looked at them and then said, ‘Okay, I can get through this. . . . I can remain optimistic.’”

As owners of Pine Row Farm (named for the acre of pines on the property), Trese and Don are part of a “community supported agriculture” movement that has grown vigorously in recent years. “It’s going back to the way it was a hundred years ago, where a family goes to the local farm to sustain themselves,”’ says Don. “It’s the community, going back to the land that people like.”

Life before the Leap

Saxophonist Don always dreamed of catering to neighbors’ tastes for fresh vegetables, homemade cheeses, and other farm novelties, like those grown on the farms surrounding his boyhood home in Rockford, Illinois.

For the first almost two decades of their marriage, Don worked a variety of jobs he describes as on the fringe of his agriculture aspirations  —  behind the machinery at a meat and cheese processing company, repairing farm buildings, and an assortment of retail jobs that he says paid the mortgage, “but were never what I wanted in my heart.”

Says Don: “When I was younger, we had family friends who worked a conventional farm and would often spend time there in the summer. I loved it.”

But in 2001, Don says he started getting serious about “what I was going to do with the rest of my life.” He and

As luck would have it, their five-acre homestead was originally part of a conventional farm for many years; sweet corn and hay were the primary crops. But the farmland was transformed into a subdivision in the 1970s, divided into five-acre plots.

The first years were born with trial and error.

“We bought a few books on market gardening, but had very little success,” says Don.

Then the couple sought out learning opportunities and signed up for a program that teaches beginner farmers. They also signed up to volunteer working with a local farmer.

“Small-scale vegetable farming is the ultimate challenge,” says Don. “We fight against weather conditions, small and large pests, livestock predators, equipment breakdown, personal health (my back wishes I was 24, not 48!), outrageous land prices, and worst of all, government regulations. Success comes not as often as we need it to, but when it does, it is truly worth celebrating.”

The View from the Other Side

These days, Don and Trese are turning buying vegetables into somewhat of an event. They have joined forces with a group of four local formers to launch the Tomorrow’s Harvest Cooperative. The group is unique among community- supported agriculture (CSA) outfits because it brings the very best of four individual farms to the table. Each farm grows something special, something best, and this food is packed up and shipped to members weekly. Customers are those who are drawn to the taste and quality of local food and increasingly

The rewards, however, outweigh the work. While eating an anniversary dinner with Trese at an elegant restaurant he does business with, Don spotted his own beets and carrots on customers’ plates. “People are very appreciative of fresh produce, and I like being able to provide that. It’s very rewarding to see someone enjoy something we grew,” Don says.

Words to Inspire

“Forget the whole corporate mentality of ‘guard your secrets.’ If you are looking to follow your passion, find other people who are going after the same dream and don’t be afraid to ask them for help. I have found that the mentors and friends I have made in farming would help me in a split second if I ever needed them for anything. People with dreams want others to succeed too.”

Making a Difference Every Day

If you’re reading this book, you’re probably struggling to reinvent your second act into something significant because you want to make an impact on the world, to make a difference in the lives of others. You may have asked yourself how ordinary people can make extraordinary differences in the lives of others. You ask, What is the meaning of my life?

Here are five ideas that that will help you jump-start your determination to make a difference in the world: