A Friend Indeed

In Sickness and in Health

A serious illness strikes a close friend and you feel utterly helpless. How can you show your friend how much you care?

Cynthia Simon found a way. Her actions left no doubt about the depth of her friendship. But this is also a story about an extraordinary couple who—despite coping with a devastating illness—helps others.

At her New York home, Cynthia Simon united Packard Center Director Jeff Rothstein and friends Lynn and Scott Mackler to raise awareness--and funds--for the Packard Center.

As Hopkins undergrads in the late 1970s, Cynthia Simon and Lynn Snyder-Mackler became best friends. They stayed in touch over the years, but when Simon left her career in New York and moved to Europe 12 years ago, getting together became difficult. Still, they remained close.

Five years ago, Snyder-Mackler called Simon with terrible news. Snyder-Mackler’s husband, Scott, a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, had been diagnosed with ALS. Snyder-Mackler, a Ph.D. physical therapist at the University of Delaware, wasn’t looking for pity. She just thought Simon would want to know.

“I was heartbroken,” Simon recalls. “Here were two talented people cut short in their prime.” Beyond listening to her friends’ struggles, she thought there must be another way to help.

Meanwhile, she was amazed to discover how concerned the Macklers had become about others with ALS—those who, unlike them, couldn’t afford a voice-activated computer and other technology. So the Macklers endowed a fund at the Philadelphia chapter of the ALS Association. They sponsored fund-raisers. Thanks to their initiative, not one person with ALS in the Philadelphia area today is lacking the much-needed devices.

In June, Simon hosted a cocktail party in New York to honor her friends “for their compassion, family loyalty and professional dedication.” (Scott Mackler works four days a week as head of a research lab despite using only his eyelids to communicate. Packard Center Director Jeff Rothstein says he’s never seen an ALS patient at this stage function at such a high level.) About 70 people came that night. And like a true friend, Simon embraced the Macklers—and their fight.

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