Goodbye to Jade Goody

As much of the world has heard by now, Jade Goody lost her battle to cancer yesterday. Jade first got the public's attention for being part of Big Brother but more recently for living much of her final days in the public's eye to raise the profile of cervical cancer and to also raise money so that her sons could be provided for after she died. Jade had a much publicized wedding last month, where the brides maids all wore bald caps (covering most of their hair) to show their support and solidarity to Jade Goody, who was bald at the time.

Jade was 27 and her husband is 21 and she leaves behind two sons. I can't imagine the grief that Jade's husband must be dealing with. Sure, you could say that he new what he was getting into when he got married but when you lose a loved one, you might consciously have an idea of what you're getting into, but I think that it doesn't really prepare you for your eventual loss. I really can't imagine going through that loss at such a young age. For the boys I'm sure that this has been and will continue to be a hard time. Losing a parent at any age is really an easy thing. It seems all that more of a crime to lose a parent before you're even an adult yourself.

I didn't ever see any of the Big Brother episodes that Jade Goody was in nor did I really follow all of her exploits in the media. I first became aware of her when Sky was doing some pre-wedding coverage last month. I'm not really a fan of the Big Brother franchises nor many of the other reality television series that it has spawned. Having said that, I became interested in her efforts to give exposure to cervical cancer. While living out the battle with cancer in the public's eye might have been the only way she knew how to live or maybe the thought of keeping all of it private never crossed her mind, but I have to give her credit for doing it the way that she did. From the bits of coverage that I saw on Sky, it seemed that he wedding was going to be a real nice event and one of her short life's happiest I'm sure.

Since I've lost my mother and grandmother to cancer, I'm for almost anything that can raise awareness and funding for the fight against it. I heard yesterday in Sky coverage of Jade's death the screenings for Cervical cancer are up in the U.K. and England might look at matching screening coverage of Scotland as a result of Jade's campaign. I do hope that the various health insurance providers will seriously looking at screening for the various forms of cancer, with many forms of cancer the key to survival is early detection and routine checkups.

In honor of Jade Goody, why not schedule a checkup and have some screenings done and/or encourage your family and friends to do so. You can also look at making a donation to any of the several cancer organizations around the globe. Jade Goody, you'll be missed, thank you for sharing your plight with the world.

Photo credit: Goody provided via a Creative Commons license at Keira76 @ Wikimedia Commons.