community on social networks sharing experiences & healing: angelo merendino at tedxcle

Angelo Merendino is a photographer whose photo-documentary, The Battle We Didn’t Choose – My Wife’s Fight With Breast Cancer, has received worldwide recognition. It is intimate, honest, and moving. More than a story about loss, it is a story about love and life. Currently based in Cleveland, Ohio, Angelo is a freelance photographer with Corbis News and Getty Images. Angelo started a blog before his wife Jennifer passed in 2011. He has since maintained the blog which chronicled their life together in Manhattan before her illness and during his time as her caretaker. Presently, he continues to write about his life after this experience and as a 40-year old widower. Like his photographs, Angelo’s posts are open and raw. With his writing and photographs, he hopes to encourage conversation about topics that are often kept at arm’s length, provide a more accurate representation of both day-to-day struggles and triumphs with cancer and describe the challenge of rebuilding a life after surviving a traumatic experience. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)