It was a day Ken Jones will never forget, and so the search for the black pearl necklace. He and his wife, Joanne, sat in her oncologist’s office in early April of 2007, where they received shocking news: Joanne’s breast cancer, thought to be in remission, had metastasized throughout her body. Joanne had only two years to live.
On the way home from the doctor’s office
Joanne breaks the silence by saying, “You know we just got a brochure in the mail from Silver Sea Cruises about a special cruise to nowhere … It spends two weeks in Valencia, Spain, for America’s Cup races. I know how much we would love it, so if I can make the booking today, the cruise begins in about three weeks … let’s go.’’ Joanne always has been a passionate seeker of adventure, and so she wanted to continue to travel the world.
Interrupted only by her treatments, Joanne becomes part of an experimental drug trial along with chemotherapy. The story continues as the months roll by until the oncologist finally ends her treatments so that she can at least be more comfortable in her final days. That was in late December 2008.
The courageous battle begins…
Despite the doctor’s advice to take a rest, she elected to spend her final days on a South Pacific cruise, rather than in a hospital bed, in search of the perfect black pearl necklace as a legacy to leave to her granddaughter. Her final cruise began in January. The last chapter of the book recounts excerpts from her travel journal in which the author details why she chose to spend her final days the way she did.
The final trip
The book details that final trip which had several heartbreaking but surprising events along the way … Many of them told in her own words. The cruise was scheduled to sail around the world, beginning in Las Angeles, with the first segment cruising the islands of the South Pacific. One of the stops was in Bora Bora, where she found the perfect black pearl necklace.
The Closure
The events that followed may bring tears to your eyes as the story comes to a close. Joanne and Ken returned home to North Carolina in early March after departing the ship in Sydney, Australia. She had become too weak to continue, and three weeks later, on March 31st, Joanne died … almost exactly two years from that fateful day in the oncologist’s office.
But that was not the end of the story. You will have to read the last chapter of this short book for the final surprise.