The roller coaster ride.

The roller coaster ride.
There were complications, hospital stays and what seemed like endless blood work. We met some remarkable health care workers along the way. People you never meet if you’re not sick.

Sifting through the levels of care as the cancer progressed was draining, but necessary. Kim was cared for at home for about three weeks before being moved to hospice — a place that most of us are not familiar with, but a place where some of the most incredible people do some of life’s most rewarding and difficult work. I could take up pages talking about the different aspects of end-of-life care. The bottom line is that it’s not easy, but you find this great capacity within yourself to carry on and to do so with grace.      

Kim passed away peacefully on July 11, 2007.

Like Henry David Thoreau suggests, we had lived in each season as it passed, with our fair share of tears and troubles, but with an attitude that can only be described as life-giving.

Both of us in very really ways survived cancer. We were drawn to live life to its fullest. What has so inspired me, is how many people Kim influenced to do just that — a powerful testimony to her unwavering spirit.

Forever in my heart she will stay!