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Halos of hope
‘Angel Room’ is tribute to mom who died of breast cancer
The Daily Reporter-Herald, December 19, 2005 by Pamela Dickman
The day Nanc Desaire was diagnosed with breast cancer -- an affliction that eventually took her life -- a massage client bought her a white ceramic angel. She wrote "hope" on the bottom of the glass figurine.
The statue now sits among 200 other angels in The Angel Room, a tribute to Desaire and a place her daughter, Loveland resident Monica Baudendistel, works daily.
It’s only fitting that Baudendistel, 40, named her first novel after that room. After all, her mother was an inspiration for the novel, "The Angel Room."
The 179-page book, available online since October and in bookstores since Monday, tells Baudendistel’s journey from co-dependence to independence as well as the relationship and love between herself and her mother.
The words also serve as a warning to women: Check for breast cancer; insist on whatever measures necessary.
If the novel accomplishes that, Desaire would say it served its purpose, her daughter said.
"It wasn’t written to make money," Baudendistel said of the book released through Publish America.
It was written to help.
In 2000, Baudendistel and Desaire began working together on a novel based on Baudendistel’s life. She set out to tell the story of how her 16-year marriage turned to violence when her husband turned to alcohol.
The story begins as Baudendistel is leaving him because the abuse had spread to her oldest daughter.
As mother and daughter, best friends, worked on the novel, Desaire was diagnosed with breast cancer. At first doctors said the lump was just a cyst. Even when it was large and had to be removed, they thought it was still a cyst.
It wasn’t. It was cancer, which in February 2004 took her life.
With the change in their lives, the book took a turn.
Still about achieving independence, it now encompassed Desaire’s long battle with cancer and Baudendistel’s hearing loss and cochlear implant.
During her mother’s illness, Baudendistel moved the massage business they shared to her Loveland home so she could work and look after her mom at the same time. The business is still headquartered there, in the Angel Room, decorated with angels and photos of Desaire.
Among them stands the first white angel and its message: Hope.
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