Maryann Roefaro, 60

By Mary Beth Roach

Healthcare leader shares her thoughts on writing her latest book, ‘A Human’s Purpose by Millie the Dog, with Maryann Roefaro’

What is the purpose of your most recent book, “A Human’s Purpose by Millie the Dog, with Maryann Roefaro.”?  I think the world seems to be searching. There are many people who search, and they search externally. I think everything is from the inside out. People struggle to know their purpose, and I think we live in a world that’s very stressful. One of the most difficult things that people deal with is death. I think if I can help change the perspective on all of that, then it could help people create the conditions for more joyful life.

What prompted you to tell it from Millie’s point of view? You know the famous book, “A Dog’s Purpose”? I figured if a human could write “A Dog’s Purpose,” why couldn’t a dog write “A Human’s Purpose”? I thought, “I could make some very heavy subject matter just have a touch more lightness if it could have an element of storytelling by a dog.”

How would describe the book? Is it self-help? Is it spiritual? It’s a self-help, spiritual book that deals with everything from life, death and families. There’s even practical applications and exercises to be more resilient, to help people take what they feel could be insurmountable problems and break them down into smaller pieces where they could make everything more manageable.

You’re the CEO of Hematology/Oncology Associates. You’re also a doctor of divinity. How does this book tie all that in together? “A Human’s Purpose” is truly a spiritual journey from the inside out that helps us create the conditions for a joyful and love-filled life and to deal with all the things that are difficult in life, death being one of them.

If we can understand that when people die, the vessel that holds that soul is gone, but that person lives forever. There are many lifetimes of the soul. All of those lives bring growth and the ability to evolve spiritually. Some elements of the book will not resonate with people, but some elements might awaken a consciousness.

What do you want people to take from the book? There will be people that this book is not for because they’re very structured in their organized religious beliefs. But there is a multitude of people that I have met in my travels that, although they may be a part of an organized religion, still question and seek. They hunger to know more information. If we can go through life knowing that we don’t know everything, that there’s always something else, that’s there’s always other information out there, then there’s always a quest to continue to evolve. This book is a venue to continue that evolution for those people that it would be appropriate for. The book tries to spark questions and thought, and provoke people to push themselves to think differently.

What is a human’s purpose? A human’s purpose is to understand that they were created by love, from love, and they are love. Which means in life, you’ll want to increase your capacity to love more, which will then in turn, allow you to be loved more because love is the purpose of our existence. Like the Beatles said, “All you need is love.”

What’s next for you on your journey? I love my job. I love being the CEO here. I’ve been here over 17 years. I see myself as retiring from here, as far as my career goes. But I see that I will be active until I die. My ultimate goal is to leave the world a better place than I found it, to be able to use all of my gifts to the best of my ability, whatever those gifts happen to be, and they’ll evolve through time, and to share the things that I feel have helped me be a better person, have helped me create the conditions for a happy and more fulfilled life.  That’s what it’s all about. People wish to be happy and they wish for better things, but the key is to create the conditions for that to occur. What is happiness to you? How do you create for you? How do I do that, being bombarded by environmental factors that I have no control over, or environmental issues that are concerning, or that are conflicting, or that are toxic?

That’s really where I hope this book goes.