As anyone with an eye for pink has deduced, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Here in Chicago, the night skyline – from the Hancock Building to the Willis Tower (a.k.a. the Sears Tower) – is aglow with rose-colored lights. These blush beacons are reminders of the loved ones lost and the work yet to be done to understand, combat and prevent breast cancer.

The displays of pink that appear each October are intended to draw attention to breast cancer, but they also serve to remind us more generally of all those who have lived and died with cancer – any type – and the families and friends who love and support them, who care for them and mourn them. The death yesterday of visionary former CEO of Apple, Inc. Steve Jobs – who struggled for more than a decade with serious illness, including pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant as the result of an undisclosed illness, and whose death is being mourned widely – is yet another reminder that the fight against cancer in whatever form it takes needs our attention. And that those coping with a loved one's illness or death need our support.

If you've lost (or are losing) a loved one to cancer or other illness, LegacyConnect has resources to help.

• Coping with Illness and Loss

• Hospice

• The Gift of Reconnecting

• Writing While Dying

• Paying Tribute to a Dying Loved One

• Laughter in the Face of Tears

• How Can We Hope When There Is No Hope?

• Being There... When We Can't

• Learning to Live Healthily with Loss

• 26.2 Miles of Love

If you know someone coping with death or dying of a loved one, and you're not sure what you should say or do, we can help with that too.

• What Caregivers Want You To Know

• Empathize, Don't Minimize Loss

• What to Say to Someone Who Is Dying

• Creating a Caring Space through Prayer

Join a discussion and talk with others about losing someone to illness. Find a support group, like Caring for Caregivers, or start your own, or get advice from one of our loss and grief experts.