Lucio's Letter

Hello Fellow Abruzzo Descendants

I am posting a letter that will explain itself. When we decided to have our second picnic in 2010, we could not imagine how important the list of names we had could become. Our descendants had no idea what we would be using our new relationships to do. At the same time, and we still believe, that family is family. For many of us, our surnames may have changed but the same blood runs through all our veins and I know that our fathers and mothers and our grandfathers and grandmothers would agree with what we are hoping to do, with this letter.

Hello,

My name is Lucio De Luca. My parents emigrated from Villa Santa Lucia, Abruzzo to Timmins, Ontario in 1950. Their ancestors had lived in the province of L’Aquila for generations. I moved to Ottawa in 1972 to attend university, met my wife, married and have raised our family here.

In August 2009 I was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). Despite the valiant efforts of the team of oncologists at the Ottawa General Hospital Cancer Centre, I am now in the final stage of this disease. My only real hope for remission is a bone-marrow transplant. To date, a search of the universal donor list has been unsuccessful. My options are dwindling. My objective now is to generate a new influx of potential donors in the hope of finding a match for me. Hence my letter to you today.

The doctors believe my best chance for a match is if a donor can be found within my ethnic community. As both my parents’ provenance, going back generations, was from the Abruzzo region of Italy, I am making my appeal directly to those of you with a similar heritage.

The process is simple. Using the internet, you logon to http://www.onematch.ca/ , follow the prompts and Canadian Blood Services will mail you a registration kit via Canada Post.

I know that I am making a very special request to which not everyone will be able to respond. However, I ask you to consider not only the prospect of saving my life, but the possibility of matching with one of hundreds of other potential recipients, many of them in the 18-35 year-old age group, who need life-saving bone-marrow or stem-cell transplants.

Please consider this opportunity to make a truly amazing gift of life.

Whatever your decision, thank you for giving this matter your consideration.

Warmest regards,

Lucio De Luca