Quality of life, or quantity of years?
Gina Orlando will take the former, thank you very much.
Whether we realize it or not, we’re all faced with that question in one way or another in our lifetimes.
But for Orlando, a Forest Park resident and a former long-time Wednesday Journal writer and Oak Parker, the question is about as real as it gets.
You see, she’s had cancer for 11 years and has been in Stage IV for three years.
And it’s not going away.
“I’m 100 percent a quality-of-life person. I am zero percent around length of life,” Orlando said in an interview Jan. 29 at her home. “There are people totally opposite. People will do amazingly destructive therapies to possibly live two months longer.
“Sometimes that’s necessary, but I’m 100 percent quality of life.”
Alongside her husband, Marty Berg, Orlando, 72, covered a lot of ground in a 45-minute interview, as the sun streamed through their condominium windows, illuminating photographs, artwork and as Barbra Streisand once sang, the smiles they left behind.
Misty watercolor memories, of the way they were. And still are.
On a nearby table were gifts and other remembrances from her celebration of life service the prior Saturday at Ascension Catholic Church in Oak Park, which is available for viewing on YouTube. Above a doorway was an Illinois license plate with TEAM 93, the year Orlando and Berg were married at Unity Temple on Lake Street in Oak Park.
That’s all fine and good. Orlando prefers to look forward.
She knows what’s coming, but unlike others – unlike most of us – she has embraced it.
“I’m not afraid of death,” she said. “As I shared in the service, I know that I’m going to something good. There may be some life review there and all that, but the light is great. Being supported and surrounded with unconditional love and light and all that good stuff, I know where I’m going to go.”
She added: “I’m not saying I’m this angelic person, no. Follow the light. The passcode is love.”
Orlando grew up in South Chicago, the heart of the steel industry in the region. She grew up in an ethnic Polish-Italian family, neighbors were close, the Catholic Church meant stability, and the food?
“Every woman in our family was an amazing cook,” she recalled. “On my Italian side, every one of them made pasta sauce and it tasted different.”
Then, with a chuckle, she added, “I thought as a kid, it’s basically the same ingredients.”
She’s adamant that her diagnosis wasn’t the turning point in her life, or even a significant turning point, for that matter.
“A lot of people, they are so focused on these deranged cells,” she said. And of the real turning point, she added, “I think when it was getting the music director’s job at Ascension in 1975. Coming to Oak Park, it was the perfect place for me. My spiritual search has been deep and wide, but I’ve always been welcome there.”
The bane of Orlando’s approach to what’s coming has been heavily influenced by her strong belief in a holistic health mindset. For the Wednesday Journal, she wrote a natural health and natural foods column for four years, where she injected a measure of spirituality and humor. She still operates her part-time business, Naturally Wellthy, and is a certified wellness and health coach, and a certified hypnotherapist. She was an adjunct professor at DePaul for 15 years, teaching two holistic health courses.
Therefore, her philosophy is holistic.
“What can we do to support the body to heal?” she said. “It’s just cancer. It may kill me, but that’s not my focus. I’ve never once identified as a cancer patient. It’s my own body.
“I’m not going to keep on finding the next thing and doing the next thing. [I will] stay as well as I can, as vital as I can, and then happy, healthy and dead.”
There’s the key word: vitality. People are skittish about death, she said, but the celebration of life service “was so life-giving to me, it was the perfect medicine. It’s a unique chance to survey your life, and what do you want to share?”
That’s not to say there isn’t a lot to do, but much of it has already been done, including the financial and cremation questions. She’s also planning to take steps to determine what to do with her possessions.
“I don’t like a lot of things,” Berg deadpanned.
“All you have to worry about is the plants being watered,” Orlando replied.
Her final message is simple. Live life fully – every aspect and experience, even the end. Berg pointed to a song played at the celebration of life ceremony: “Be Not Afraid.”
“You can improve and increase your health in many ways, mind, body, heart and soul,” she said. “Find ways to not be afraid of dying. Craft your end of life in a way that is meaningful and joyful and even creative for you and your family.”