Katie

My sister Katie has been battling brain cancer and it's effects for nearly 16 years. Over the last year she had suffered a stroke and had been going downhill for some time. Over the course of the last week she had fallen a number of times, to the point where my sister, her care-giver, had made her wear a bike helmet.

Yesterday Katie was sitting at the kitchen table while my sister went to fix her 1 year-old's hair. Janis heard the crash and found Katie behind the table. She had fallen and hit her head on the windowsill so hard, she cracked the tile. She was unresponsive so Janis called 911. They took her to the U, but she never regained consciousness. The doctors said she had excessive swelling on the brain, but it wasn't caused by the fall. Rather, the fall was a result of the swelling.

She had a living will that stipulated she not receive any life-saving measures, although there was nothing that could have been done anyway. We all gathered and with my parents on speaker phone from Spain, she was given a blessing. She passed peacefully at 8 p.m.

My parents are being released from their mission and they'll be home Tuesday. We are planning the funeral for Friday. As I sat there, watching her transition from this world to the next, I kept thinking how grateful I am for eternal families and the blessings of the temple.