BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Elaine Boynton

Legacies come in all shapes and sizes. Elaine Boynton's comes in everyday acts of living.

A nose-to-the-grindstone worker takes a walk at lunch. A woman picks up the telephone and schedules a mammogram. A family remembers that laughter is a necessary part of life. This is Elaine Boynton's signature work, and it is written - with a flourish - across the Tristate. CP:Elaine Boynton

Elaine died Tuesday, at age 53, of breast cancer. But before that she lived. Gloriously. Fully. Generously.

She shaped health care in this community in the most significant, bottom-line way: She put people in charge of their own well-being. She gave them what they really needed to lead healthier lives. Not a printout on how their HMO worked, but knowledge of how their bodies worked, and their minds and spirits.

She gave people choices, and so she gave them power.

Poking fun at dragons

She had the energy to make it seem she was everywhere and, over a 25-year period, she pretty much was. Director of training at the University of Cincinnati's Center for Health Promotion, and the Northern Kentucky Health Department. Manager of health promotion at Bethesda Health Care Inc. Assistant professor at UC and New York University. President of her own health consulting company.

But somehow, it seems more important to say she was funny and kind and excited and unpretentious. We respected Elaine's titles. But we loved Elaine.

She walked into a wellness workshop as Dr. Boynton, but she quickly became that sharp, witty, well-informed girlfriend you wanted sitting right beside you. You could ask her anything. Menopause came out of the closet, and flab, sexuality, mastectomy and AIDS. In the daylight, it didn't all seem so scary.

Elaine poked gentle fun at life's largest dragons, and they stopped breathing fire. A bad hair day was a no-hair day, she could tell you, with the chemotherapy tattoos to back it up.

In the very years when medical science seemed determined to make us feel guilty over everything - eating an egg, being ignorant of our heart rate - Elaine was our encourager.

She made us feel we had enormous power to make our lives better, and perhaps even longer.

But her own struggle showed us that quality of life isn't measured in years.

She neither dramatized her fight against breast cancer, nor glossed it over. She fought hard, not only to be well, but to be productive, normal, approachable, lovely, good company.

And in everything but time span, she won, because she was all those things.

She was also very wise.

Filling each moment

It didn't take disease to make her appreciate life. She learned that lesson as a school girl, in an exchange program to Germany. She embraced the Frau with whom she lived as "my German mother," and studied under her intensely.

The small bouquets scattered over her house. The tiny sweet slipped into the hand of a flagging young student. The household custom of gathering downstairs at 9 each evening to share a bite and reflections on the day.

Elaine took note of them all and, in her later life as a wife, mother, friend and businesswoman, she never forgot to fill each moment with grace.

It is true that, in her courage and openness, Elaine Boynton taught us something about dying. But it is more significant that she taught us so much about living.

One of Elaine's most passionate causes was the Breast and Cervical Health Network of Southwest Ohio, run through the YWCA. It provides the one thing women need more than pep talks and optimism - information that can save their lives.

A memorial fund has been established to benefit the YWCA Breast Cancer Program, 898 Walnut St. Cincinnati 45202. It is a gracious act, reminiscent of Elaine.

But let us honor her in other "Elaine ways" as well.

Let us embrace good health, and each other. Let us devote ourselves to big causes and small moments. Let us take seriously our relationships and commitments, and lightly our setbacks and disappointments. And let us be grateful for life, and remember to laugh every day.

Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

ELAINE BOYNTON DIES AT 53 August 13, 1997
WOMAN OF THE YEAR March 3, 1997
RAMSEY ARCHIVE