MY SISTER

She died less than two hours after I arrived at her home.

My sister. My friend.

K-Kay was also a wife and a mother to two children. She was a Grandma of a sweet, little one with another one on the way.

Breast cancer has a way of tricking you. It's a cancer that is treatable. For every breast cancer story, there is a one of survival. We all hear about the courageous battles that are fought and we listen to friends and strangers tell their own breast cancer survivor stories. But the survivor story that I wanted to hear most about was my sisters. K-Kay went through the chemotherapy, the drugs, the mastectomy, the hair loss, the breast reconstruction, the nausea, the ups and the downs. K-Kay spent the majority of the last two years or her life fighting this cancer with everything she had. She was strong and wise and lived with a positive outlook on life. K-Kay laughed often, loved her children fiercely, put her family and husband first, traveled with friends and had such a zest for life.

Why her?

Why now?

I thought about this as all of her family surrounded her bed. Cousins and brothers, sons and nieces, her own Mother wanting for anything but to watch her own child die before her. All of us brushing her hair, mouthing words of encouragement...."you can let go"...."we are all here"....."we love you." Her husband, whispering in her ear private words that only lovers speak.

I held her hand, the one with the Rosary. After the last rights were said by her priest, I wished her to quickly leave our earth. I didn't want her to suffer. I wanted her to die with dignity and peace.

When she did leave this earth, my sister......my beautiful sister's spirit rose up to soar with the eagles.

All of us cried not only for our loss - that huge space that no one could fill, but we also cried tears of joy. The cancer no longer broke bones or caused the intense pain that left her groggy or nauseous from the pills. We cried for K-Kay's quality of life that had been disintegrated by the cancer and we cried for how we remembered her before.

I cry now for her husband and her sons. I cry for her two Grandchildren who will never get to know the sister for whom I loved. I cry for my Mother, who has had to watch her husband and daughter die. I cry for a woman whose life was cut too short.

From left to right: tallulah, brother VCee, sister K-Kay and sister Donut

And through all this grief, there is joy.

This is how I will remember my sister.....laughing in the sun.

Farewell most loved and loving spirit.