Music Heals the Heart

In the early 80s it took just a metal harmonica and a green and yellow plastic kazoo for Bridget Heaney ’94 to fall in love with music. But it took a far greater love to form the duo CJ Sister, record the heartfelt CD “Fight for Your Life,” and travel cross-country to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer. That love, says Heaney, was her mother Carol Jean.

A year after Carol Jean lost her two-year battle with breast cancer, Bridget and sister Shannon recorded a CD in their mother’s memory. “Fight for Your Life” contains six songs written and performed by the sisters. “Live On” is a song that is especially meaningful to Bridget.

“I was so sad and angry about not having her in my life…it just didn’t seem fair. So I picked up my guitar and, between sobs, the words just came to me and I didn’t put my guitar down until the song was done.”

But producing a CD just wasn’t enough, she says. On April 3, 2002 the sisters headed cross-country with their guitars and walking shoes for a two and a half month journey to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for the Carol J. Heaney Scholarship Fund.

From Charlotte, N.C. to Portland, Oregon and many places in between, CJ Sister performed in coffeehouses and small venues with the support of the American Cancer Society. All of the proceeds from the CD and/or donations, Bridget says, will be used to support an annual scholarship for a student from Voorhees High School in Glen Gardner, N.J. who has been affected by cancer in some way.

“She (Carol Jean) used to take us to folk festivals every summer in her long, flowing skirts and with braids down her back. She was a beautiful free spirit…music brought that out in her,” says Bridget. “So we tried to get that across with the CD.”

Along the journey, Bridget says she knew her mother was watching over her and her sister the whole way. Mom always taught us to “live our dreams now and don’t be afraid to get out there and reach out to people. So we did,” Bridget says.

Meeting people from all walks of life, she says “there were people who opened up to us about their struggles with cancer or their personal stories of loved ones with cancer. It was difficult to hear, but heartwarming that people felt so comfortable opening up to us…complete strangers felt like old friends.”

Bridget says that continuing to maintain the scholarship fund and watch it grow throughout the years will remain one of her priorities. “We plan to even give the responsibility of maintaining it to our kids one day,” she says.

For more information about CJ Sister go to http://www.cjsister.com.

— Jennifer Post Stoudt