Mutual Funds Against Cancer

MY GUARDIAN ANGEL
A tribute to Paula J. Pearlstein

In 2001, a Guardian Angel came into my life. She first approached me in the form of an emailer. This emailer’s name was Paula Pearlstein; a person that I did not know and had never heard of. She asked me what she could do to help. Then the emails continued and continued and continued. I couldn't keep up with them. I needed help raising money, not an electronic pen pal. Then one day an email entitled “check warning” came from Paula. In it she warned me that some checks would be coming from her life-long friend Michael Rothberg and his co-workers at Cantor Fitzgerald. A day later several thousand dollars in personal donations showed up in my mail box. Tragically, three months following that year's golf tournament, Michael Rothberg and many of his co-workers would perish in the attacks of September 11th.

Paula continued to work tirelessly raising funds for Mutual Funds Against Cancer even as her condition worsened. One year she showed up for the tournament with her leg in a cast. But nothing was going to keep her from coming. Paula often spoke at the banquet following the tournament. One year she read a poem that was written by the children with cancer that she used to visit while she was still living and being treated in San Francisco. She had asked the children to think about what they wanted to say to this large crowd that was raising money to fight this horrific disease. The poem, which Paula read to the crowd, left nary a dry eye in the room.

At the 2003 banquet following the tournament we selected the Grand Prize raffle winner for a 4-day trip to Bermuda with first class air. The winner of the trip was Paula. Paula came running over to me and said she wanted to donate the trip back so we could auction it off and raise more money. I begged her not to do it. I told her “you want to go on this trip” to which she replied, “I do, but I want to cure cancer more.”

On February 26, 2004 my Guardian Angel left this earth and the world is NOT a better place for it. However, I know that she is now in a better place, a place that is full of Guardian Angels -- just like Paula J. Pearlstein.

Frank Strauss