Legacy Matters

"There's no such thing as a bad day"

I'm sad to hear of Hamilton Jordan's death.

I never much liked him when he was chief of staff to President Jimmy Carter, but I was much impressed with his attitude when he was first diagnosed with lymphoma some 22 years ago, followed by bouts with melanoma and prostate cancer.

Hamilton Jordan dies at 63, AP obituary

ABC News

Hamilton Jordan, the architect of Jimmy Carter's presidency, leaves behind a towering political legacy that may be exceeded by contributions to a field far from the campaign arena: cancer research.

Jordan, who died Tuesday at age 63, made his private medical battles public with the same passion he brought to the Carter White House.
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But he made his main post-White House mark in the world of medicine, as a renowned and animated anti-cancer voice.

With his wife, Dorothy, he founded Camp Sunshine, a summer camp for kids with cancer that has grown to serve more than 700 families a year in Georgia. Largely outside the national spotlight, he lobbied for billions of dollars in federal and state cancer research -- and freely dispensed volumes of advice to all who sought him out, and many whom he sought out.

"There was no better spokesperson for us nationally," said Vicki Riedel, a board member of Camp Sunshine, who first met Jordan in the early 1990s, when her daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.
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Jordan's mantra was embodied in the title of his best-selling 2000 book, "No Such Thing as a Bad Day," autographed copies of which he would hand out to newly diagnosed cancer patients.

The title reflects the optimistic, active approach he considered critical to fighting a deadly disease, he explained in an interview with the Web site WebMD.

"When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive, and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor," Jordan explained. "That's the course I took with all three of my cancers."