From Pink Hair to Tambourines, Learn How One Woman Found her Purpose after Retirement

Dorothy: [00:00:00] So you’ve retired. You’ve sold your business. You’re going to go out and you’re going to look over the whole world and travel and just have fun. And then you get bored. This is what happened to Chris Noble as she was ready to go and have some fun— she got involved, With The Rose. Listen to what happened to her and to the amazing friendships she’s made since then, and how she is changing the face of The Rose in the black communities.

Let’s Talk About Your Breast. A different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose, a breast center of excellence, and a Texas treasure. You’re gonna hear frank discussions about tough topics, and you’re gonna learn why knowing about your breast could save your life. Join us as we hear another story and we answer those tough questions that you may have.[00:01:00]

Hi, I am Dorothy Gibbons, and I’m the CEO and Co-founder of The Rose Breast Imaging Center of Excellence. And we’re here to talk about your breast. I have Chris Noble with me who talks about breast constantly to the community. She is our director of corporate and community relations. And Chris’s story is so different than anyone I really know.

Last night we were at a function and I asked one of the lead people there if, you know, “how would you describe Chris?” And she started right out to tell me, and then she went, “Oh, no. How would you describe Chris?” So, that is a part of this woman’s ability to go into different populations, different crowds, and talk about breasts, and breast tissues, and mammograms.

So, Chris was a previous business [00:02:00] owner of Mar Noble. 24 years, then closed it down. Husband died right before that of— how long had y’all been married?

Chris: 27 years, and then we lived in sin for 9 before that.

Dorothy: Oh my gosh.

Chris: I know. Terrible.

Dorothy: So this was someone you knew a long, long time. Been your partner in crime and all that.

So, that was a pretty big life change.

Chris: Yes.

Dorothy: And took a little bit of time to get over it. A whole lot of time. But you had come to me and said we saw each other at some function and you said Dorothy i’m going to take a couple weeks off and then i’d like to talk to you about volunteer work. Thinking that I had a new volunteer, you know, I was all excited happy And then two weeks later she comes to me.

“She said I can’t stand it. I need a job,” you know, “Give me give me a job with a title and let me go out and talk about The Rose.” Well, from there, that was 10 years ago. And you’ve been talking ever since. [00:03:00] So, what, what motivates you to get out there and talk to people?

Chris: In the early years, I think it was, I was just so excited to have a new, new career, a new, new venture in my life.

That was early on. And then after the first person told me that I saved their lives, That was just, it took on a whole new meaning. And, and that person, I mean, I got right in her face and said, “if you don’t have an appointment by Monday, I’m making it for you and we’re going to go and have that done.”

Dorothy: Wow.

Chris: And she— she, uh, did have breast cancer. Both breasts.

Dorothy: Did you know or did you suspect?

Chris: No, but she’d been having issues and every time I saw her, she would tell me about her issues. And I’d say, “well, when are we going to go check this out?” So anyway, she’s, so after that first person, I was just hooked. Um, what a great chapter to my life to be able to help you, Dorothy, and The [00:04:00] Rose, save people’s lives. And I’ve had great chapters, but this could possibly be my best.

Dorothy: Ah, that’s good.

Chris: Could possibly be my best. Yeah.

Dorothy: Interesting. My goodness.

Chris: Well, I’m, I’m using everything I know from all those others. Every day in so many ways. So that’s why, you know, I don’t think I could have done this 20 years ago.

Um, I’ve just used all those things that I knew as a teacher. That doesn’t ever go away. And then I can remember the first time I came up with an idea, when I was first at The Rose, came up with the idea, and took it to my boss, Domingo, and had this whole thing we were going to do, and his eyes rolled back in his head, and I went, “No, no, no, no, no. When I come to you with an idea, I know how we’re paying for it.” Because that’s what I did as a businesswoman. So, I mean, I’ve been able to use a lot of that. To just talk to people.

Dorothy: And part of your idea was a [00:05:00] new outreach to the African American community.

Chris: Yes.

Dorothy: You were adamant that we had to do something a little different and certainly different we did because of you.

But what was this connection to the black community? What, what, what did that for you?

Chris: You know, Dorothy, I, I may have been you talking about the terrible statistics for black women, but I kept hearing that. And, uh, I think one day I told you this story, but my, my teaching jobs, my eight years at HISD were in all black schools, and my first mentors were black seasoned teachers.

And so it was kind of like they were tapping me on the shoulder saying, “you know us.” And so I was just kind of giving it back. Um, and and I have actually been back to all of those schools in the last 10 years for one reason or another, On behalf of The Rose.

Dorothy: Really?

Chris: Yes. Now some of them are no longer schools.

They’re Community centers,

Dorothy: Right. [00:06:00] Right.

Chris: But yes That was that but it would it just um— If you can imagine being a 21 year old college graduate, and you don’t really even know that much about teaching anyway. So, and now you’re in a different community than you grew up with. So, I mean, those women taught me everything I know about really the day to day teaching and dealing with children and that sort of stuff. So I do it for them. And I remember the names of most of them.

Dorothy: Goodness.

Chris: I had some really awesome principals and folks that kind of let me do my thing. And, uh, just said your children better not be running down the hall. They better not be because you’ll know they’re mine because I put the stars that they get on their forehead, not on their paper. So they’ll know.

Dorothy: So I know that you connected up with Kim Roxie after a little bit and then y’all [00:07:00] came together to do the impossible. You went out into the black communities, churches, and somehow or another convinced the powers that be the, the pastors to let you speak about breast cancer, mammography from the pulpit.

I imagine that was a, a little different experience.

Chris: It’s an interesting story that you’d probably don’t even know. The very first church that I spoke at, the pastor was a friend of my friend Susan. So I told, I met him and I told him what I was doing, this was early on, before I, I don’t even know I met him yet.

And he said, well come to church and I’ll let you speak. So I came to church and I spoke and he whispered in my ear, “you got this Chris.” And he sent, he called and, and told some of his pastor friends about me and that’s kind of how it got started. And then later on, October [00:08:00] 13, 2013, when I met Kim at that event that you were being honored at, um, I didn’t realize until a few years later that that pastor’s wife was her music teacher.

Kim’s music teacher. And Kim, Kim credits her for a lot of the success she has in life because of the discipline that this woman taught her in playing piano. How did that happen?

Dorothy: Right.

Chris: How did that happen? So, um, yeah, I met Kim on that day and she didn’t have any business cards. So I gave her mine and said, reach out to me.

I want to talk to you about something. Well, she didn’t. I didn’t hear a word from her for a week or so. So I put, I wrote her a note and put it in the mail. And it said, “Kim, you can run, but you cannot hide. Call me now.” So she called me, I could hear her laughing. I said, thank goodness you called, but you’ve got to come in here and I need to talk to you about some stuff.

So she came, came to the Galleria office and And I told her that I [00:09:00] was starting this initiative in the black community. And, um, but let me give you a tour. So I gave her a tour and we’re standing out in that hallway and “I said, do you think you would like to be my co chair on all these things that we’re going to be doing?”

And she started crying, jumping up and down. Earrings are flying off. I’m now crying. Then I looked at her, so why are we crying? She said, you didn’t know this, but my mom was, was diagnosed by The Rose at a mobile day at her dad’s church. And this was her second bout of breast cancer that she was going through.

And I didn’t know that.

Dorothy: And her dad was a—

Chris: The pastor of that church. I mean, so how does that happen?

Dorothy: Right, right.

Chris: And so we began our events at the Ensemble Theater, but her mom did pass away in 2014. Kim says there’s something about that number because my address is 2014. [00:10:00] Anyway, after her mom passed away, I told her, I said, “you know, I could never take her place, but I will be your mom when you need one.”

So I became “mom.” That’s all she calls me now. And a few years later, she gave me a very handsome son in law and I have a precious six year old, soon to be seven year old, soon to be twenty seven year old granddaughter who’s just a mess. Who FaceTimes me twice a week and we do stuff.

Dorothy: Right. A whole new family.

Chris: But a whole new family, a whole new thing. And, um, Kim, all roads lead back to Kim.

Dorothy: Mm hmm.

Chris: Because she would talk to people and she would have me meet these people or call these people or text these women or these pastors and all. So really all the roads lead back to Kim. Um, and we’ve been going to several churches every year and, and, and getting checks and uh, we have some coming up that we’re gonna go to to receive a check for The Rose. So it’s, We will be together, we’re bonded for life. [00:11:00] We’re bonded for life.

Dorothy: So how many churches do you think you’ve spoken at? Do you have any idea?

Chris: I’m sure it’s more than a hundred. I think probably, um, I mean, they’re the, from thirty people, to I mean, I don’t know how many some of those megachurches have. I mean, it’s big. There’s, there’s probably a dozen that, that are faithful, that always invite us to do this or to do that or give a check or ask me to speak. But there’s been some that came and went. I’ve been helping out a new church. There’s 30 members to this church and this pastor wants to do everything the megachurches do. It’s just on a tiny scale.

Dorothy: And the result of those first three years that you were, we were hosting the ensemble was pretty amazing. I mean, you’ve been out in the community. We’ve got the ensemble. We have women coming in to just do the [00:12:00] event, but also listening to you and our population that we serve in the black community went up 19 percent we’d never seen much of an increase in the population

Chris: Wow.

Dorothy: But then when we Kind of research down a little bit. What was so interesting to me was 95 percent of those women were insured

Chris: Wow.

Dorothy: And they had not come.

Chris: Yeah.

Dorothy: They just either didn’t know enough didn’t want to come whatever but See, I think we always forget that access to care doesn’t mean just for the uninsured.

Chris: Right.

Dorothy: It means whatever we can do to educate or encourage or make it easy for women to come to us. That’s, that’s also another part of access to care. We, we really, uh, we really mean it when we say we’re going to find a way to help that woman get in. And I was so ecstatic. I thought, “gosh, we could do this with, with [00:13:00] the ensemble theater. We could do this with you out in the churches.” And it’s kind of consistently increased a little bit every year.

So, you know, that’s good. The thing is, we don’t know how many went somewhere else, and that’s okay, but.

Chris: You know, yeah. The important thing is that they’re getting checked.

Dorothy: That’s it. So I don’t know if I want you to repeat this or not.

Chris: Okay.

Dorothy: But, I remember one visit that I said, you said, here’s how I started my talk.

And I said, “Chris, I don’t, I, I don’t think I want to know.” And then you told me, and I thought, “I really don’t want to know.” So remember when you said remember how excited you were You’re talking to the congregation. Remember how excited you were when you found Jesus Christ.

Chris: Yeah. Yes. Well. You know, I’m at i’m at a southern baptist church and i’m going to speak to them. And so it was I I was preaching and you remember the day you received Jesus Christ What did you want to do and it was to tell everyone and I said that’s what I want to [00:14:00] do. I’m an evangelist for health. And somebody in the background, thank God, said, “Amen!” I went, “yes, I’m there, I’m there!” But I did say that. That’s probably the only church I’ve said that.

Dorothy: Oh, okay, that makes me feel better.

Chris: That makes you feel better. That’s probably the only one. Even though Pastor Davis said, “I had this, you can go, go out into the world.”

Dorothy: Chris, tell us something you do every day that’s unique to you.

Chris: Yeah, I thought about that. You know, and um, I don’t know exactly what might be unique to me, but I put on music almost the minute I’m up to the time I go to bed, except if I’m having to watch television. But music is playing in most of my house.

Dorothy: Interesting.

Chris: All the time. I read somewhere recently, I didn’t do it in the beginning for that, but it’s really good for your brain.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Chris: It helps your brain [00:15:00] stay connected. You know, the words to the song, you know, the, the melody, whatever, keeping your, and I didn’t know I was doing that. So I’m going to continue to do that.

But I walk in my house, Alexa play smooth jazz everywhere. And it’s in the morning I get up. And after I say, “what time is it?” I tell her to play music everywhere. So, I mean, I do that all the time.

Dorothy: There are some great studies, you’re right, out about what happens to your brain when you hear music, or when you sing. And it lights up all the, uh, creative sections of the brain.

Even if that person is imagining it.

Chris: Wow.

Dorothy: Yeah, they’ve tested opera singers and things like that, you know. So, I just found that fascinating. Music is important.

Chris: Yeah.

Dorothy: We forget that.

Chris: I mean, I do that. I walk in the house when I get home today and that’s probably the first thing I do is I’m putting my purse down.

Dorothy: So tell us about that special song that was created for The Rose.

Chris: Yeah, her [00:16:00] name is Cassandra Tyson. Cassandra, I’m going to say, is a jazz singer. She’s also an insurance agent and she— I can’t remember exactly where I met her, but I met her and she said, “I need to tell you a story.” I was at my office. I looked down in the parking lot and there’s this big pink bus with The Rose on it.

She said, “I need a mammogram. I haven’t had a mammogram in forever,” but she didn’t do it. A few months go by, however long goes by. She looks down there one day and there’s this pink bus again. The Rose bus is there. She said, “I think God has sent me a sign.” So she came to us and was diagnosed. And because of that experience of that bus saving her life, so to speak, she created a song.

And as I recall, it was when I needed flowers, God sent me The Rose. [00:17:00] Unfortunately, Cassandra got COVID and she had to be intubated.

Dorothy: Oh.

Chris: She can no longer sing. I said, “Cassandra, maybe you can sing as good as me. We could still sing together. I mean, nobody’s going to laugh at us. And if they do, it’s okay.” But yet Cassandra has not been singing since, since she had her COVID, um, bout with COVID, but she’s gone into the jewelry making business and she makes lots of jewelry.

And I had done that with my niece. So I gave her pretty much all of my beads. Just gave them to her cause that she had, she needed something to do. So she’s been doing this beating since then. And, um, did you know that there was a, that there was a, uh, what do they call those things? A documentary done on Kim?

It was—

Dorothy: Yes, yes. [00:18:00]

Chris: And it was called the “Aspire Tour”. And this woman whose name is Nikki Porsche, she, um, um, Picked out 12 women across the country and followed them and put these, put these documentaries together. Which when she was in Houston, I was part of the documentary and she had on this bracelet it’s just beads and in plastic letters that say inspire. So those— that was the inspire tour.

So she had those made. She gave me this one and I every time I looked at it. I thought “I like this.” I like to look down and see that word. Well, whenever I talk to Kim on the phone, the last words are, “I love you. Just do good.” So I have bracelets made by Cassandra Tyson that say, “just do good.”

Dorothy: Oh my goodness.

Chris: And so I gave two out yesterday. I gave one [00:19:00] to Ashley and some, if they mentioned it, I give it to them. So I have have, and so Cassandra’s making jewelry and I’m buying black. Because I got it from Cassandra and this was the Buy Black tour. So it was really cool. So I’ll leave you one. Because I just want you to do just do good.

Dorothy: And she’s doing well now.

Chris: She’s, yeah, physically she’s well, but I don’t, I don’t know whether she’ll be able to ever sing again or not. But isn’t that too bad?

Dorothy: Yes.

Chris: Yeah, it just sucks.

Dorothy: COVID upset so much. Stopped the world. Really gave us some challenges that most of us never thought we’d face.

Chris: Yeah.

Dorothy: Right. And thank goodness she got through it.

Chris: Yes.

Dorothy: There’s so many that didn’t.

Chris: Yes. That she made it, made it through it. And she, you know, she, I’m sure she misses being able to sing and my hope is that one day She’ll, things will heal up enough where she can sing to where I, she probably is more harder on herself than she needs to be.

Maybe she could sing something that wasn’t so high or I, I mean, I don’t know about [00:20:00] singing and stuff. Yeah. But yeah.

Dorothy: Before Covid, you were out once a week every week. Many places talking to women’s groups and you are continue to be a speaker for us. Anytime someone needs a presentation, especially if it is, you know, way in Houston or are, you know, anywhere that you need it fairly quickly because we all get so booked up around here. And I think your calendar started to be like that.

Chris: My calendar is like that, always like that for October.

Dorothy: So. I remember that you couldn’t work then, during COVID. You couldn’t be with crowds, you couldn’t be out with, nobody was inviting speakers. Nobody was doing it. So what did you do during that time?

Chris: Well initially, I went and gave blood and I posted it. I went to the food bank and helped them and I posted it. And I went somewhere else, and did some volunteer work and posted it, and all of my friends are calling me. “You need to stay home, you’re [00:21:00] old, you’re not supposed to be out doing all that stuff, you need to stay away from this stuff.”

So I thought, okay, what am I going to do? So I started creating art. And I moved my art studio, or created one, in half of my living room, and I spent hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and sometimes three in the morning, and sometimes I’d get up at five in the morning. And, um, to date I’ve created over 700 pieces of art.

I think the number is about $16,000 for The Rose. I’ve donated Many to other causes. My, my, my, my, my brag, one to brag about is I did one for the Rodeo Wine Committee, and it sold for 500. I’m impressed. It was one of those, you know, to buy it now, this is the price. And it had, it, it was, it was very cool.

Anyway, that gave me an outlet. I figured I could watch television, do art, rather than watch TV and eat. [00:22:00] So I only got in five COVID pounds instead of 35 COVID pounds. But, uh, it was nice to get back to doing, doing art. I’m not doing quite as much as, as I was. Um, my art was in a gallery. It started in February and my art was in a gallery and, and I sold about enough for five mammograms in the gallery.

The woman who owned the gallery is retired police officer. Um, With the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s or police officers. And she, as an artist, and she, her lifelong adult life was to, was to have an art gallery. So she gets the space and she decks it all out and she retires. And three weeks after she retires, she’s diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

Breast cancer, I mean,

Dorothy: I see.

Chris: Yeah. And so, and where my wall was, it [00:23:00] had all my stuff and it had Rose brochures and stuff like that. And she tried to keep it going, but really there were only a few of us that could bring people in.

Dorothy: Right, right.

Chris: And um, and we just said to her, you need you, we need to shut this down.

You need to take care of you.

Dorothy: Mm-Hmm.

Chris: She’s already done her chemo. She’s had a mastectomy, now she’s on radiation. But yeah, that’s at least a two year battle, isn’t it? Just doing all of that.

Dorothy: It can be, it certainly can.

Chris: Yeah, it can be. And so we just said, you need to shut it down. So what, she shut the gallery down.

There’s another breast cancer. I mean, what do I know? I’m just in her gallery. And, uh, so two of her other artists that were in the gallery, they got their own studio in the Winter Street silo area where all the artists lofts are. So she’s still able to continue to do her art, but not be in charge of, of this whole gallery and all the things that go with having a business.

But, I couldn’t believe, she says, I couldn’t believe stage three breast cancer. Three weeks after [00:24:00] retiring. And she’s, she’s in her 50s. She retired early.

Dorothy: Risk cancer is so, it doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what color you are, What your job is. What your job is, what your family background is.

It is, you know, if you have any family history, it doesn’t matter. Plain truth is, if you are a woman, you are at risk. And we say that all the time. And we always add in that men can get breast cancer too. They find something they need to get it checked. What was the I mean you’ve given us so many examples of these odd things that keep happening? And do you attribute that to anything? Are you just seeing your path or…?

Chris: I know there’s at least three people wherever those people are in heaven or wherever they — Guide me. Maybe maybe it’s just I remember what they said. That’s how it guides me or they actually guide me. [00:25:00] Um It’s really, it’s interesting how it all keeps passing, crossing paths. Like, you know, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I talk to everybody. It’s bound to happen.

Dorothy: So what advice do they give you?

Chris: Um, my husband I always remember is always add the sizzle. This, nobody can see it, but my pink hair is the sizzle. You always have to add something that makes, uh, people interested.

Uh, another thing that I do to add the sizzle is I try to have a fun purse because women will comment on a purse. And once you look at me, I’m going to talk to you about breast cancer. You know, and, and my mother, my mother always tells me be nice. I don’t know why she would have to tell me that, but she always told me be nice.

I mean, even when I’m in my 60s, “be nice.” “Okay, mom, I’m being nice.” And, [00:26:00] um, I don’t know. I tell my brother that, that I have my mother’s outgoing personality. You could talk to a rock and my father’s even temperament. He, on the other hand, has my mother’s uneven temperament and my father’s quiet personality.

So I got those two. So the things they talked to me a lot about, about, about, um, how to treat people and, um, I wish that my parents could meet Loretta, Kim’s daughter. I mean, I really do wish that they could, could have met her. And, uh, because they’re still a big part of my life. And then, and Mike is always telling me, telling me, I mean, he taught me so much from the time I met him to the time he, he died.

He taught me so many things and allowed me to be the owner, the boss, the 100 percent owner of the company. He didn’t want any of that mess. And he [00:27:00] allowed me to learn those things, and, that I use today to help you— The Rose.

Dorothy: Right.

Chris: Yeah.

Dorothy: So, you know around here we call those “God Things” and we don’t have any problem in talking about God Things and I think it’s just uh, it’s is odd that Spirituality is one of our values. And you know, you just don’t see that unless it’s in a faith based church or our faith based organization and over and over again we we have these examples of how You Something else is involved.

It’s not us. Something else is involved and we, we really, really have to pay attention. I think, I think that something else is involved in everybody’s lives.

Chris: Yes, I do too. I do too. I, I think it happens all the time. Like you said, you just kind of have to pay attention. And sometimes we’re in a big hurry and, and we don’t pay attention to that stuff.

But I try to, Try to count my blessings as often as I [00:28:00] can because I have some great blessings in my life right now.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Chris: I have all my life.

Dorothy: So you were a retired woman well for two weeks and uh You’ve had a very successful business. Husband goes. What would you say to a woman who is approaching an age or has gone is in that time? Which is not sure what is next? What would you say?

Chris: Well, I can, I can remember the day that my husband died and the He had a short, very short illness. I mean, from diagnosis to death was not even 90 days. So I didn’t have to, you know, it wasn’t a long, stretched out. And that’s unusual. Usually it’s long and stretched out.

But, um, I can just remember that day after, you know, after he had passed away, and I didn’t have to worry about him anymore. It was, I, I just, I know I said it out loud to myself. I just want my life back. [00:29:00] Because he always let me have my life. I was not his Mrs. “So and so.” I was Chris Noble. I was born Chris Noble.

So I just wanted my life back, and I didn’t feel bad about wanting my life back. You know, and I knew that he wouldn’t, he would want me to, to go on and do stuff. And, uh, and so it, for me, it was just kind of a, I just wanted my life, whatever that was going to be. I certainly had no idea 10 years later, I’d be looking at you, you across the room doing an interview.

Um, cause it, it took such a different turn than I even planned. Even when I wanted to come to work, it took such a different turn than I ever wanted to, you know, I just, I don’t think there’s anything. There’s really retirement. Uh, I, I, I, my, my mother didn’t work a lot out of the home, but she did lots of volunteer work, lots of volunteer work, [00:30:00] and they did a lot of things.

They were active, and, and, and I felt like I needed to be active and figure out what my next chapter was. I’d already had a couple chapters, so I knew there were chapters to your life, and, and, and you could move past one of your chapters and be in the next chapter, so I, at least I had some. Some, uh, track record where I knew, you know, you could, you could do that, but I never would’ve guessed it would be the way it is today, really.

That, um, The Rose has brought me so much. Yeah. Just brought me so much. So I just, you know, and women asked me that, how did you do it? I said, I just decided I needed my life and what, how that looked that day. I didn’t really know what it was gonna look like. But there was no way I could just stay home and watch television, or go shopping, or, I mean, I had to go, I had to do something.

I can remember my parents, when my parents lived in, uh, when my parents lived in Dallas, they would come to [00:31:00] visit, and there used to be a column in the, in the newspaper where it listed non profits who needed various things. Now, almost every time my mother came, she would circle one of them, and write, “help these people.”

And leave it for me. So that, you know, “help these people.” I was in the computer business. “Help these people.” “Okay mom, I’ll do it.” So I would call and give them some equipment or give them some service or whatever. Help these people. So, you know, I hear her say that all the time too. “Help these people.”

Dorothy: So Chris, where are you going to be two years from now?

Where do you envision yourself?

Chris: Working at The Rose. Working at The Rose, working at The Rose, working at The Rose. I told Shannon, my boss Shannon, I knew I had 10 more years in me.

Dorothy: Well, we’re so glad you have 10 more years in you.

Chris: I mean, I’m hoping to travel a little bit more, but I can fit that in with what I saw, as long as it’s not right around October or October.

That’s the, [00:32:00] that’s the time that I would, I would miss. I wouldn’t, I would miss doing that. So, maybe a little bit more travel, but I’ll be at, I’ll be at The Rose. I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t foresee any, unless you fire me, I don’t see any, I don’t know how I would leave, you know, I don’t know what that would be like.

I try to keep myself healthy so I don’t, hopefully I won’t get sick and not be able to work. Um, but it keeps you alive mentally. And then all the amazing blessings that have come my way because I work at The Rose. I wouldn’t have had these blessings from, um, Lifetime Achievement Awards from President Joe Biden?

Chris Noble would have never had that if she hadn’t have been Chris Noble from The Rose.

Dorothy: And you’re about to get your doctorate, your honorary doctorate.

Chris: My honorary doctorate. And you are all required to call me “Dr. Chris” once. And that’s it. [00:33:00] Yes. I’m out in, in December. I get, I would have never gotten those sorts of things.

Dorothy: Oh, I don’t know, Chris. She had plenty of awards.

Chris: I have, I have, I have, I have more than. I tell my boyfriend all the time, I have more than I ever needed, but as long as The Rose gets recognition and it’s Chris Noble with The Rose, I’m good, but if it’s just me, I don’t need that.

Dorothy: Right.

Chris: But, uh, yeah.

Dorothy: It’s again, having that purpose, having something bigger than yourself to do.

I know that you, you’re out a lot in October, but breast cancer happens all year long and If you could change that, if you could change people wanting to know about breast cancer, what would that look like?

Chris: You know, I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about that, and, and one of the blessings that has come to me because I work at The Rose is I know about a lot of other smaller nonprofits with similar missions or missions that kind of go along with our [00:34:00] mission or just totally different missions. And not only is October Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but it’s also Domestic Violence Month. And one of the women that I’ve become very good friends with Has a nonprofit that takes, does that.

And she’s been in, this is her 25th year, has like 20 people, staff and helps women through that. And I said, you know, we need to figure out a way where we can join forces in truth, 2023 and have breast cancer and domestic violence past October. So we can get out there and she can, she can find places for us to speak and I can find places and we can double team them because it’s the same month and let’s get them talking.

Let’s get people talking and thinking about breast cancer and domestic violence more than just October. So that’s, that’s my rough 2023 plan is to figure out how she and I can get into the different communities and, [00:35:00] and let, um, people know. And, um, one of the communities that she is in is younger women, high school kids, college girls.

And one of the things I tried in 2019 was the boob camp for the teens. And I would like to do that again. So we’re thinking about some of that because it was fun.

Dorothy: Yeah.

Chris: And, and cause I, we had domestic, we had, We had, um, me talking about breast cancer. a financial person and human trafficking. And then the last was makeup.

So it was fun. And they were like 15, 16 year old girls. And I talked about, you know, what do you do if you have a family member who has breast cancer, those kinds of things, not just all about you getting breast cancer. And I’d like to do that again. And, and she would be a good partner to, to do that.

Dorothy: Yes. Yeah. Cause that’s so talking to young women before and helping them to understand. They’re bodies and how important self exam is, [00:36:00] you know, there was a time when we tried to go into the public schools and they wouldn’t let us, I mean, it’s just, perhaps that’s changed more now, but, you know, those little incremental steps mean so much.

Chris: Yeah, well, especially Dorothy, if we’re, if we’re diagnosing women in their twenties.

Dorothy: Yes, absolutely.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, in your teens, you need to know something.

Dorothy: Right. Yeah.

Chris: Something, or at least to know if it’s different, tell your mom, if that’s all you learn is it’s different, tell your mom. Yeah. So, uh, that’s, those are kind of my things for 2023 and, uh, you know, I always have to have some sort of plan, right?

Dorothy: So I often hear you tell women to take care of themselves.

Chris: Yep.

Dorothy: How else do you get them to take care of themselves? We’ve had many discussions on this show about women putting themselves last. And I know that you have some one [00:37:00] liner or some long talk or something you do to help that message get through to the audiences that you do talk to.

Chris: I’m not sure if this is exactly the, the right answer, but I have, I have used this phrase in the beginning. You know, if I know there’s a Mack truck coming towards you, did you want me to get you out of the way? Okay. Did you want me to push you out of the way? Or, do you just want me to let the Mack truck come?

And, and they’ll look at me and I said, “I know breast cancer is gonna happen to a few people in this room. If we don’t all, and we don’t know who that is. So if you don’t take care of yourself, and you get screened, and you don’t know if you’re the one the Mack truck is gonna hit. And if you wait too long, it’s going to be about like a Mack truck hits you.”

So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve had that in my talk. I just grabbed their hand and said, “tell me who, who loves you, who depends [00:38:00] on you?” And she’ll say, “Oh, my kids or my boy.” I said, “do it for them.” I said, “okay. If you won’t do it for you, come to The Rose and have your mammogram because you’ll help be helping another woman.”

“If you won’t do it for you, do it for her.” And, you know, just I, and I try to make some humor in it, but I, and I, and I know it’s difficult for women to, um, slow down.

Dorothy: Mm-Hmm.

Chris: And, um, make time for themselves. Um, and so I talk a little bit about that. I mean, if, if you had the time, what would you do? And some of them will tell me, I want to, I want to learn to paint and I say, well, what in the world has stopped me from doing that?

Dorothy: Right.

Chris: But you, you know, it’s but you. Um, so, yeah, I do, I, I ask that a lot. And, you know, sometimes it comes to be a little more poignant than others, but.

Dorothy: Excellent, excellent. Good questions to ask.

Chris: Mm hmm.

Dorothy: Questions we don’t always want to answer.

Chris: Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, and, um, [00:39:00] I’ve had.

So many unique experiences in this, and that’s probably why I continue to be enthused about it. Um, I just, I find it interesting how all the Kim thing came about. I mean, I’m sure it’ll happen again. She’ll be intertwined with me somehow. Um, Kim and I were asked to speak at a funeral for a woman who died of breast cancer.

To speak! We didn’t even know this woman, really. I mean, we knew who she was, but we didn’t, we weren’t friends. But they wanted the, the congregation, the people there, to know about breast cancer. And she requested that The Rose come and speak at her funeral. You may not have even known that.

Dorothy: No, I’m learning a lot today, Chris.

You’ve referred several times to Kim. You’ve talked about what she’s helped you do in the, Black community, but tell us who is Kim Roxie.

Chris: Kim Roxie is a Dynamic young woman who I can’t believe just turned 40. Anyway, [00:40:00] um, she started her own makeup line at the age of 21 And she started a clean makeup line called Lamik and she at that time was living in Atlanta and had one of those kiosks in the, in the, one of the shopping centers there.

And that’s really kind of how she got started because she couldn’t find clean makeup for women of color. And then eventually she moved to Houston, had a brick and mortar store, and now does everything Online and she’s just awesome person.

Dorothy: And she had a huge change in 2019 She knew she has to go online and I just think that foresight. My gosh She had no knowing what was gonna happen, but she was there.

Chris: Well, she and that year she went to all these tech schools these six week classes here She must have done 30 of them across the country because she knew she could take her makeup line [00:41:00] to technology. So you can put on your eyebrows on yourself online so you can see how it looks and she knew you could do that. So she found out a lot about the tech part of it and uh has has even been given awards because of her technology component to To makeup.

Dorothy: And now our makeup is in Ulta and about to go into another store.

Chris: I think it’s pennies.

Dorothy: Yes.

Chris: I think pennies had someone else and they’re leaving and And I don’t know if it’s Ulta’s, I think it may be Ulta’s going in there and her brand goes there. Her, her brand was only online but is now in stores, some stores. And then One woman who was at all of our, our, um, ensemble events, her daughter has, her daughter’s name is Candace Rose, and she has the organization Pretty Girls with Cancer.

And her mom passed away, and this, they did a beautiful book attributing all the attributes of her [00:42:00] life. There was a picture of her at the ensemble event. I mean, there we were in this woman’s life. So, it just, things, that’s, that’s, How did that happen? You know, how did that happen? And I’ve given a number of my pieces of art away, but I’ve only sold one piece to someone I didn’t know.

Every other piece has been bought by someone that I knew.

Dorothy: Oh my goodness.

Chris: That is, you know, lifelong, but I knew them. I knew their, I knew their name. We were Facebook friends or, or that thing. Yeah, probably at least 600 of them.

Dorothy: My goodness. Well, Chris, we certainly are glad that you’re in The Rose’s life and we’re delighted that you joined us today, shared some things that could be important to a lot of people, will be important to women.

And any last words?

Chris: I thought about this a lot in the last [00:43:00] couple of years. It was really wonderful to be an adult when my parents were alive. To have an adult relationship with my parents. And you can’t have that if you’re not with us. So you gotta take care of yourself because I guarantee it will be so phenomenal. You won’t even believe what you learn about yourself when you’re an adult with your adult parents.

I don’t mean taking care of them, I just mean leading a life with your, as an adult, with your parents in the same city doing it and, and, and I want you to be around to have that experience. Or maybe it’s another experience. Maybe it’s your grandchild or your great grandchildren. You need to be around to experience these things because I guarantee you, you’re going to love it.

Dorothy: Oh, thank you, Chris. Thank you so much. And. Thank you for being so enthused and caring about women and different populations that [00:44:00] really need our help. You really do need The Rose’s help. So that’s going to be it for this show. And we are going to be back with you at another time when we are going to again, talk about your breast.

Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Freddie Cruz Creative Works and brought to you by The Rose. Visit TheRose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast, share episodes with friends, and join the conversation on social media using #Let’sTalkAboutYourBreasts.

We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need and remember. Self care is not selfish, it’s essential.