Last summer around July 11th my sister was being admitted in the hospital for a possible bowel blockage. I was at the Nashville Zoo with my family when I got the phone call, grateful I happened to be in town that day. I allowed my kids to finish their walk (we were at the end of the visit anyway) and headed to Sarah Cannon Cancer Center. She was alone sitting in room 4314. They needed to put a NG Tube down her nose and if you have never experienced or seen it done it is pure hell. The first attempt didn’t work and the nurse left for a bit. She looked at me and said please don’t leave me before they try again. It was the most vulnerable she’d permitted me to see and I told her wild horses couldn’t drag me away. And I stayed while my kids where down in the lobby and my husband bouncing between me and them, I stayed for another hour and half.

We got some meds ordered to help Kiya’s nerves, the second time the nurse tried but again it was unsuccessful and my sister was crying with a panicked look on her face- I said that was enough, no more tries, we were done for the night. I called her doctor and said you better have a backup plan because this isn’t happening. I requested a pediatric ng tube be ordered and it was. The next day Kiya was sent to radiology to have it done because her nose required the skill of a physician with experience. Oh, the amount of bile that came out of her that first day was unbelievable, she was so sick but still looked relatively stable at a decent weight… That would quickly change as her prognosis changed almost over night it seemed.

The day Kiya was told her cancer came back she called me to prepare me for our mother’s reaction, she was always concerned with our mother. I knew her percentage of survival was less than 5% so when she secretly told me her doctor gave her less than a year to live, I was not surprised but still I remained hopeful because I believe in a God that performs miracles. I was hopeful because my sister hung on to that hope, she needed it fed. I was hopeful because our mother needed to believe her youngest child would out live her. Still my heart was heavy with great sorrow of the weight of not being able to share what my sister had laid upon me was a heavy burden to carry alone but she needed me to carry that burden with her and I did in silence. I knew numbers I knew but numbers do not define the God of creation, God is not boxed into a percentage so I hoped and prayed.

My sister would often ask me “do you think I am going to die?” My response was always “not today.” How do you answer a question like that when the person asking is not prepared to die? You feed them hope and you encourage them to lean into their Savior and remind them He did the work all they have to do is free fall into it and trust He will catch them. During that time Kiya began pushing her circle of friends away not because she didn’t love them but because the burden she was carrying was too great in her eyes for them. My heart broke for her inner circle but we were powerless to change her mind and respected her wishes, upholding them – no visitors. It is not a pleasant position to be in nor would I wish on it anyone. She laid in that hospital bed starving literally starving because they didn’t start TPN until almost two weeks after she’d been admitted, to say I do not like or agree with her doctor would be an understatement. She lost almost 15 pounds in a month on a body that couldn’t afford it. No matter how much we begged her to get a second opinion (and we all did) she refused. She was emotionally tied to her doctor which was a very bad, bad thing. These are the untold stories that families go through with cancer. We felt helpless as we all watched her clinging to life but yet dying in a horrible fashion- but then death often is in a horrible fashion.

August 2nd my sister text me at 7am and asked me to come and pick her up because she was being discharged, I quickly got dressed and we drove the two hours to get her to take her back to her house. She shed many tears that day for different reasons, reasons that don’t matter now but reasons that broke her and her heart. I am often asked where was her husband? It is a valid question but not one for me to answer. My sister was in a marriage she wanted to be in that is all I can say. She was very private, she shared what she wanted with whom she wanted, period. That cheerful bubbly girl had gone through a transformation and left with the scars and wounds from months of chemo and radiation. Not to mention the menopause she was thrown into at the tender age of 37, yes, she had a right to be demanding and secretive. I brought her home that day but by the end of August she was told there was nothing else that could be done, she was sent home to die, to starve to death, and that is exactly how she died. There are a lot of this should have been done and we should have demanded that but in the end Kiya was always in control no matter how much we disagreed with some of her choices. She went home on August 2, 2019 and died November 30, 2019…

During that time, we exchanged many text messages and many phone calls. Our mother basically moved in with her and her husband. There were many times I stayed with her until she came to my house… to die. Theology became my anchor to reshift my vision onto something else as it fed my faith. It comforted Kiya to see me studying to know I was still moving forward in what she was proud of in and for me.

This is the summer of remembrance, to keep her memory alive because last year was the summer of death and dying, a summer where hope was ripped from us, the summer we had to come to terms with losing her. Things Kiya loved: she loved my patio lights, my fire pit, and the magic of summer nights. She loved my beach cottage and closet nooks I created for each girl (writing love notes in them the last time she was there). She encouraged me in school when I was unsure, she said “go as far as you can!” And here I am getting my doctoral degree. She loved animals of any kind. She loved the “magic” ordinary days that were filled with laughter, dogs, coffee, the ocean, a good beer, steaks, and good company. She loved kindness and showing kindness.

This is the summer to remember not grieve, it is the summer to dance under the moon, play the music too loud, and jump in the pool. It is the summer to read lots of books under the summer sky and feel the grass in my toes, as I count the clouds. It is the summer to hunker down during thunderstorms with the dogs and a warm blanket while binge watching Netflix… it is the summer to move forward and not backward. It is the summer to remember my sister the way she was meant to be a free spirit moving to a beat of her own bringing a smile to everyone she encountered. It is the summer of remembrance of her and not cancer…