NORTHAMPTON - Cancer. Just hearing the word coming off a doctor's lips can strike a patient like a rattlesnake from the brush. But hearing that Jackie Walker died of it seems almost impossible to those who knew her.

She was the one you went to when your diagnosis was at its most raw. As co-founder and co-director, along with Deb Orgera, of the Cancer Connection, Walker's arms were the ones that held you, her voice the one that soothed you, her spirit that which girded you for battle.

"Our community is missing an angel," said Judith Fine, owner of the Gazebo and past president of the Cancer Connection's board of directors. "Jackie was a compassionate, passionate person, and a wealth of knowledge as far as cancer and treatment was concerned. She had an incredibly sarcastic wit - you always wanted to be on the right side of it. I always enjoyed her glibness. Whatever we were discussing as a board, you always knew exactly how Jackie felt. She'd roll her eyes, make faces. She said it like it was, and she said it with irony. She lived a life based on reality, no bull."

Walker had survived a bout of bilateral breast cancer in the early 1990s and had been cancer-free for 15 years until the disease returned with a vengeance in December, claiming her life on Jan. 8 at the age of 62. She founded the Cancer Connection with Orgera in 2000, as a resource for cancer sufferers and their families, a welcoming place offering comfort, empathy and solace for body and soul. People familiar with the nonprofit call it an essential part of the community and Walker's presence there indomitable.

"When I got the news, something in me just dropped," said board member Paul Waterman, of Northampton, himself a cancer survivor. "Such a loss. Like a star going out at night. The work she did was a testimony to how she lived her life."

Waterman was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening form of melanoma in 2006, which resulted in the amputation of a thumb.

"I didn't know where to go," he said. "Emotionally you're a wreck. ‘When am I going to die?' you wonder. You come face to face with mortality."

A bewildered Waterman dropped into the Cancer Connection offices in Florence. He said Walker immediately put him at ease.

"It was almost a relief talking with Jackie, a sense of reassurance. She understood the emotional place I was in. She put me in contact with another guy who had melanoma, another human being. I went home thinking, ‘Maybe this isn't the end of my life.' Honest to God, to have a nonjudgmental, trusting place to go - I don't know what I would have done."

One who did not walk in that door fresh from a disturbing diagnosis was Diedrick Snoek, retired professor of psychology at Smith College. "I wandered in, met Jackie, and asked, ‘How's it going and what do you need?"

What Walker needed desperately was a support group for men. "I've done that," answered Snoek, and Men Living With Cancer was begun.

"Jackie was the heart and soul of Cancer Connection, the first person you talked to," said Snoek. "She was simultaneously knowledgeable and warm, simpatico in a realistic way. She brought a unique combination of gifts to this role."

A founding and continuing member of that still-thriving group is Bob August, of Whately, who had been living with cancer for six years before visiting the Cancer Connection. He had originally gone there to take advantage of a Reiki program the agency was offering. Walker piqued his interest in a men's group. "I said, ‘Well, OK, I'm not a person who thinks that much about these things, but I'll give it a try.'"

"It works," said August. "It's not an institutional setting, it's a very homelike atmosphere. It allows us to talk freely and openly about things that concern us, not just cancer itself. Some may encounter tension within the family because of the demands of treatment. We're there to listen, not to offer advice. It's an opportunity to get outside one's self, give voice to the things swimming around in your head, things that compound themselves over time. Just get it out!"

The men's group meets on Wednesday afternoons. Walker would often be there working when the members arrived, trading barbs and such. "She was one of the gang," said August. "It was more of a brother/sister relationship. Then she'd go to lunch, making sure we had the place to ourselves."

The organization that Walker and Orgera built offers a wide range of free programs, from acupuncture to knitting to swimming to art therapy to writing, all cobbled together from grants and private donations. Keeping it afloat was daunting. Both women had decided to step down from their co-director positions this summer but had agonized over when to make the announcement. Waterman recalls something Walker said at a board meeting a couple of months back about that very issue: "Cancer is a disease of uncertainty. I don't want to put another element of uncertainty in other's lives."

"Her sincerity and truthfulness was what I remember most," said Waterman. "Her outspokenness was a vital part of her. She had a great deal of courage."

"I'm extremely saddened by the loss of Jackie and the suddenness of it," said board member Betsy Neisner, who recently stepped in to help with the transition.

Walker was engaged in a way that only a survivor could be, Neisner said. She said that Walker was on the forefront of a movement that empowers patients to question their doctors much more deeply than before, and that more and more doctors are referring patients to Cancer Connection, realizing the benefits to recovery and well-being.

Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel called Walker's death a profound loss. A cancer survivor herself and a board member, Scheibel recalls Walker's spunkiness, spirit and the "devilish twinkle in her eyes."

"She had a desire to help others in a very direct and open way. But quite honestly, to do that on a day-to-day basis, knowing that there's a risk of recurrence, going through uplifting times as well as depressing times, watching close friends recover, others die, it can take a toll," said Scheibel. "To face it every day takes an extraordinary type of person. But she never turned anyone away."

"She never gave herself a chance to step away from cancer," said Waterman. "She never had a day where cancer wasn't paramount in her life. It would be very, very tragic if Cancer Connection didn't survive."

Neisner said that the agency is on solid financial ground and will continue from a position of strength.

"We need to do all we can to assure that it goes forward," said August. "That's the finest tribute we could offer Jackie. It shouldn't go away because she passed away." bflaherty[AT]gazettenet.com

Daily Hampshire Gazette