Community Corner

Hermosa Woman Checks off Bucket List

Hermosa Beach resident Corinne Ybarra is selected as a Patch "Greatest Person."

Editor's Note: Corinne Ybarra was nominated by a Hermosa Beach Patch reader to be featured in our '' series. If you know of an extraordinary Hermosa resident, send your nominations to jacqueline@patch.com.

Corinne Ybarra remembers clearly how the ocean breeze felt against her tired shoulders about five years ago on the day she thought about jumping off the .

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Beach Cities native, who now lives life by her bucket list, had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003.

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After months of treatment and thinking victory had been won, Corinne, 61, was diagnosed again months later.

"They said, 'get your affairs in order,' " she remembered. "The second time around was very terrifying for me. I didn’t think I’d live through another harsh treatment. I was so depressed. One day while sitting down there on the Pier, I was crying my eyes out, thinking, 'I can't do this again.' "

Find out what's happening in Hermosa Beachwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Then she heard fellow Hermosa Beach resident and friend Paul Amarillas and his wife Yvonne call her name, walking along the Pier behind her. Paul asked Corinne what she was doing.

"I’m trying to decide if I should jump," she sobbed.

"Well you might want to think about going out where the water is because if you jump here, you’ll kill yourself," Paul replied.

Corinne then "laughed so hard," she said.

"It just broke the spell," she told Patch. "Thank God I live in a community where people reached out and support one another."

Corinne moved to Hermosa Beach as a teenager in 1967. Back then, she said, she remembers hanging out at the old , eating hamburgers at Juicy James Hamburgers, and playing volleyball at 13th Street.

Corinne married Hermosa Beach resident Abel Ybarra in 1991 on the beach at the in a Polynesia-style ceremony—that same 51-year-old tower was donated to the in 2002.

Corinne has participated in the , Leadership Hermosa Beach, Community Emergency Response Team, Woman's Club of Hermosa Beach, , , and .

She also was a recreation specialist with the city for several years, best known around town as "Mrs. Claus."

Corinne and her husband Abel even organized a community luau called Aloha Days in 1997 to raise funds for a surf museum. The event, which received a certification of recognition from the city in 2003, continued annually for eight years until it ended around the same time Corinne was first diagnosed with cancer.

After years of serving the community, tables turned and the community gave back to her.

Unable to get out of bed, "Fran Carr, who was president of the at the time, brought me jello everyday. Pat Love would read to me," Corinne said about the time following her diagnosis. "Everybody brought me cards, flowers, food. Vera, the owner of , would come by, pick me up and take me to their restaurant for a good meal. Kiwanis members brought me to their weekly meeting for lunch and lots of laughs."

When Corinne was diagnosed with cancer a second time, she suffered Stage 4 HER2-positive breast cancer. In 2006 she participated in a clinical trial for a lymphatic system treatment, which helped her body heal.

"It saved my life," she said. "So now the cancer is inactive [but] it will come back… I’m trying to live with the hope it’s not, but if it returns, I want to make sure I live well."

To do this, Corinne has continued, year after year, to check off a bucket list she created in 2007 after seeing The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

Has Corinne finally taken her dream holiday to New York City that included the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? Check. "We had Thanksgiving dinner at Tavern on the Green," she said.

Has Corinne surfed the waves in her favorite getaway Waikiki and swam with dolphins? Check, and she and her husband Abel would actually like to move to Hawaii someday.

"The cancer survival rate is much higher in Hawaii with 365 days of summer, lots of vitamin D, fresh air, slower pace, I think I hear Aloha calling me," Corinne said. "You know, this [article] counts for my bucket list... One entry on my bucket list is to be able to bring hope to those who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. I am stage 4, and I am a living example of hope."

Advice Corinne has for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer includes being your own advocate, always having a second opinion from various doctors, and taking a buddy to appointments to take notes.

But she added that a supportive husband and community probably have the biggest impact on the healing process.

"I love my community. You know, it made [Hermosa Beach] a part of me when I knew I survived such an ordeal and I was met with open arms," she said.

Evidence of this impact jumps from the pages of a poem Corinne wrote just moments after realizing that life is a miracle, that day on the Pier many years ago:

Hermosa Beautiful Hermosa

land that I love, with waves of blue

encircling you, like the gentle

calm cool light of spring.

Hermosa Beautiful Hermosa

When I sit upon your sandy beach

and dream of Pirates and Queens.

Your sand so smooth and gentle to my feet,

It is as though the clouds were just beneath.

Hermosa Beautiful Hermosa

Please keep me safe and sound

My ever sense of struggle

Sometimes cause me to feel down.

Hermosa Beautiful Hermosa

With every sound of your splashing sea,

rocking me like a baby fast to sleep

and the healing mounds deep within,

And free my mind and soul.


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