My Cousin, My Friend

Kami and me. Matching Easter
dresses.  1980 something

Like most babies, I had a flock of family that loved me from the moment I was born.  But I was extra blessed because I have an older, girl cousin, Kami.  She’s five years older than me, and some of my earliest memories involve her. Kami grew up in Kansas, but she visited Oklahoma often to see our grandparents and I would always anxiously await the days she would come to town.

One of my first things I can remember – and I’m digging through 40 years worth of cobwebs in my brain, so this may be inaccurate – is Kami, me, and our great granddad, Jim, on the porch of his and my great grandma Ada’s house in Carmen, Oklahoma.  (That's Grandad Jim in the photo to the right with Kami and me on my first birthday.)  I’m pretty sure Grandad Jim had given us chewing tobacco, and we were spitting it off the porch.  I remember Kami saying, “don’t swallow it, Erica!”  And I wouldn't dare.  I did everything Kami told me to do.  She was my older cousin, I adored her, and wanted to play with her every chance I could.  I wanted to be just like her.

Kami took tumbling, and she was one of those kids that took three steps and did a cartwheel.  Took three more steps, did a cartwheel.  I wanted to be just like her, so she taught me how to do a cartwheel, and pretty soon I was also turning a cartwheel for every three steps I took.  She taught me how to drink pop from the bottle the correct way. She would make up little dances or gymnastics routines and teach me how to do them.  I would tell all my friends how cool my cousin from Kansas was.  I vividly remember telling them one time that she was a good enough gymnast that she could go to the Olympics. 

Easter. Probably 1977.

Kami was in gymnastics; I wanted to be in gymnastics.  She was into Barbies; I got into Barbies.  She wanted to play dress up; I wanted to play dress up.  She rode Grandpa’s horse, Skeeter; I rode Skeeter (years later, I had to tell her that Grandpa sold Skeeter, she didn’t run away like he told us). Kami was a cheerleader; I became a cheerleader (she was more of a legit cheerleader than I).  One year at Christmas, Grandma asked me what I wanted, and I was having trouble coming up with anything.  She handed me Kami’s wish list to help give me some ideas – I copied it word for word.  I really, truly wanted to do everything she did.

As we grew up, I realized that it was more than her activities that I wanted to do.  I wanted to act like Kami.  I was a bratty, mouthy kid, but for some reason, she put up with it and included me anyway.  She was always so pleasant and kind-hearted.  I would mouth off to her, and she would respond, not with tackiness, but with love and politeness.  When our little sisters came along, I treated them like pests. But Kami would make sure they were part of the fun, especially when I wasn’t being so nice.

Kami is the cool one with the fab 80s hair.
 I'm the dork wearing a hat.

Kami was the cool high school kid, and I was a very dorky (again mouthy), awkward junior high kid, and she would still include me. If we went to their house in Kansas, she would take me cruising and would even introduce me to her friends.  Most high school kids wouldn’t admit to knowing a junior high kid, but not Kami.  She was always, always nice, loving, inclusive, and again, pleasant. 

As she went off to college, she got even cooler and was selected as a cheerleader at Kansas State University.  I was still her little country bumpkin cousin, but she still would include me in what she was doing.  We would talk about boys, movies, sports, and life in general.  I was blessed again because my older cousin became one of my best friends.

Kami had her first baby girl 10 years ago, her second one came along eight years ago.  She was an incredible mom and loved those little girls so much.  She was so great at offering parenting advice to me when my little one came along.  She was always teaching them and molding them into good people. When we visited their house in May, the girls were fighting a little, and she kept telling them, "speak kindly to each other!"  What good advice, for now and the future.

Now, I adore Kami for a different reason.  She fought melanoma for more than two years with incredible determination and bravery.  When she received her diagnosis, she did not wait around to start treatment.  She did some research, and found some ways that she could start fighting the cancer on her own.  She learned that sugar could possibly feed cancer, so she completely cut sugar from her diet.  She worked very hard to keep her two daughters' lives as normal as possible. She continued exercising, especially playing tennis.  She grew in her faith.

She started going to MD Anderson in Houston for treatment, and the early treatments looked positive.  But for about a year, it seems like she took two steps forward, and two steps back.  Through it all, she remained positive and very rarely complained.  "Complaining makes it worse," she would sometimes say.  Each bit of bad news was just a setback to her, and she, her doctors, and God had a plan to tackle the next hurdle.  Through all the physical, emotional, and psychological pain, she has remained brave, beautiful, pleasant, positive, faithful, fun, loving, kind-hearted, inclusive, and strong. Oh my gosh, is she strong!  

Once again, I want to be just like her. In the face of adversity like this, I pray that I am only half as brave and positive as she has been through this struggle.

She faced a really harsh setback two weeks ago when she developed pneumonia.  Ultimately the pneumonia took her life.  

I ask anyone that is reading this to please stop and pray.  Pray that God's strength and peace washes over her husband, her daughters, her parents, her sister, our Grandma, and the rest of her family and friends.  Please join me in supporting this wonderful family with your prayers.  She was such a wonderful person and the world isn't as nice without her in it.

Cancer sucks.