First Cousins

The Hamers. From left clockwise: Kenny,
Brian, Stephen, Peter, Danny, Kevin and Tim.

My cousin Danny Hamer, blonde and sweet-faced, dies suddenly when he's barely 16.

Our giant of a father sobs like a baby at the funeral. At the time Mom is terminally ill, and it seems to us that the world is ending. We cannot absorb the idea that our sweet Danny, who loves high school swimming and shares a paper route with his brothers, is gone. 

Although we believe his death is a tragic fluke, later we will discover that Danny has lost his life to an adrenal gland tumor which wreaks havoc on his body. It is not a fluke, however. Instead, it's the result of a rogue gene that meanders along our family tree attacking several second cousins, Danny's brother, my own son and brother, and my brother's son. The mother of our second cousins, Suzy Shields, makes the connection nearly 20 years after Danny's death when her own son becomes ill. Because of her family research and medicine's advanced treatments, the rest of us with the deadly gene are spared. We owe our lives to Suzy. And to Danny. 

Danny, 1977. His last school pic.

That hardly makes us feel better about Danny. He should be with us. Like many of his Hamer brothers, Danny would have grandchildren now and tell stories about growing up in a family of seven male siblings. Instead, Danny will remain our sweet blonde boy. Somehow, my own nine brothers and sisters and I will always associate Danny's death with Mom's death just a year later. Danny will forever be just 16-years-old, and Mom will always be the beauty she was in her 40's. 

I am thinking of all these things at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs as I attend the burial of my Uncle Steve - the father of my seven cousins. On this hot July morning, my husband John and son Kenny and I squint into the sun as Uncle Steve is lowered into the ground. A retired Air Force colonel who served 30 years, Uncle Steve is buried with military honors. My six cousins stand shoulder to shoulder in front of me like a brigade of handsome soldiers, and beside me their sweet wives weep. Uncle Steve is buried in the same plot as Danny and Aunt Patty. It's a comfort to think of them together, but it's also the end of an era. All our parents, as well as our only uncle - the loving and eccentric Uncle Carl - are gone. 

Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve with sons
from left: Kevin, Tim, Ken, Stephen,
Pete and Brian

Without the generation before us to organize family gatherings, I fear we will never see each other. During Uncle Steve's Air Force career, our Hamer cousins lived all over the country and even in England for a time. We didn't see them often, but when the Browns and the Hamers united under one roof, I always sensed the "family" part of us. Even now, I observe that my cousins Tim and Stephen have hair just like my brothers Joe and Tom. The Hamer boys and the Brown boys all have the same shaped heads. Kevin and my brother Mick share the same mischievious glint in their eyes, and my cousin Peter might as well be my little brother Tom's identical twin. 

It's not just that, though. The Hamers were reared by their mother - my dad's sister. Aunt Patty raised seven boys all by herself when Uncle Steve was serving two tours of duty in VietNam. She was tough, opinionated, demanding and loving. Just like Dad. She and Dad even had the same piercing blue eyes. After Dad died, my siblings and I loved to look at Aunt Patty's eyes just to feel Dad gazing right back at us. Those blue eyes, however, could be fierce when we were in trouble.  Even though his dad was a seasoned military colonel, my oldest cousin Tim makes a confession. 

Suzy Shields, our savior and
health advisor, with Uncle Steve

"I was far more afraid of my mother," he laughs.

In this way we are part of the same fabric. Aunt Patty and Dad raised all of us to revere faith and family. Loyalty was paramount. For the rest of our lives, we understood that if a family member needed help, you dropped everything and took care of each other. And another thing - you absolutely went to Sunday Mass.

If one of us was suffering from a stomach ache on Sunday morning, Dad preached us a sermon. "Mind over matter! You think Jesus cried over a little stomach ache when he was dying on the cross for you?" 

Just when you'd never felt so bad in your life, Dad made you feel a little worse. That was because suffering was to be embraced according to Dad and Aunt Patty. You toughed it out, behaved yourself and acted like the good Catholic you were.

Even now as I approach 70 years, I am reluctant to skip Mass. I have no more children at home who require a good role model. Why not? Then I imagine meeting Dad and Aunt Patty at the Pearly Gates. They stand side by side regarding me with those bright blue eyes.

"What happened to church?" Aunt Patty inquires in that strong Eastern accent, her eyebrow arched.

My cousins' wives from left: Jen, Carol,
Sharon, Sherry and Noelia

Dad merely shakes his head. I am crushed by his disappointment.

Tim remembers the winter visit the Hamers all made to our house in their big green van. On their way home from Nebraska all the way across the country, the heating element gave out. The only heat in the vehicle came from the floor just above the transmission. Seven boys took turns lying stomach down on the warm part of the floor.

"You've had your 15 minutes, Brian!" Aunt Patty would bark from the front seat. "It's Kenny's turn!"  

There was no such thing as whining or fighting over it. You simply sucked it up. 

We laugh as we remember, but we're also grateful. None of my siblings and I will ever forget the way Aunt Patty traveled numerous times from Colorado Springs to Grand Island when Mom was dying. She cleaned our badly neglected house, made dozens of meals to store in the freezer, and comforted us. I didn't appreciate until I was much older that Danny had just died. Uncle Steve and our six cousins needed her as much as we did. Kenny, her youngest, was only ten. I know her big heart must have been sorely divided, but she was intent on taking care of her 16 kids. We will never forget her kindness.

Cindy, Ken's wife, with Uncle Steve

At Uncle Steve's service, we share these stories and updates of our own families. It is remarkable to be in a room full of Hamer kids and grandkids and Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve's great grandkids. So many in these younger generations boast a splendid abundance of Uncle Steve's red hair and good looks. I'm sad not to know them better. It's impossible, though, when we all live so far away from each other. I am especially sad not to be able to spend time with my cousins' wives. Those Hamer boys married good ones. Sherry, Carol, Sharon, Noelia, Jen and Cindy. I am struck by their beauty and kindness and humor. No wonder Uncle Steve and Aunt Patty loved them so much. Grief is no stranger to these girls, either.

In fact, my cousin Stephen and his beautiful wife Carol are enveloped by more grief today. Their daughter Kristin's husband, who's been in Hospice, has died only the night before. Yet, with characteristic family courage, young Kristin is attending her grandfather's funeral with her four-year-old daughter.

"I'm so sorry, Kristin," I embrace the slender, red-haired girl. "I can't believe you're here today!"

She sighs. "I want to be here," she says. "Where else would I be?"

Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve with the grands

I see her later at a table with her striking red-haired siblings. One of her brothers is in military uniform, like his grandfather before him. I hardly know these children, but I suddenly realize I like them very much. They are my family.

Pete's lovely wife Jen is the talented family photographer. She snaps photo after photo and at last sits to visit. Jen is mourning, too - not only for Uncle Steve but for her own dad who's struggling with health issues. Soon, though, she shows me a video on her phone. It's her daughter Kaitlin's announcement that a baby is coming. In the video, Jen whoops with delight and throws her napkin into the air while my cousin Pete beams with surprise and joy.

Jen and I smile in mutual understanding. Even in death, there is life. Our parents leave us, but the great Hamer family continues to grow and thrive.

When we at last hug goodbye, I tell my cousins we have to commit to a reunion. 

"It's what your mom wanted. We can't just be together at funerals!"

Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve

They agree, and we immediately propose that we Eastern and Midwestern cousins meet in the middle - say the Ozarks. But I know it is unlikely that we will manage to gather more than a hundred people in one place. Life is too complicated, and our young people are busy.

Still, I want more - more time to tell stories about Uncle Carl and his mega-boxes of Christmas gifts. More time to spend with my six cousins and their wives. More time to learn about their work and their interests and the books they read. Do they ever feel like skipping Mass on Sunday?

That's what makes me sad. We share so much - a legacy of family and history and a terrible rogue gene that makes us distinctly different from everybody else we know in the whole world. Still, even that gene belongs to us and to us alone. 

Surely, we will meet again. The trouble is, we're all getting older. At least I am. At the rate we're going, we only see each other once every five years. How many opportunities are left to us? 

 Uncle Steve's burial with military honors

In that case, I'll look forward to Heaven. Sweet Danny will be there. And Mom and Dad. Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve and wonderful Uncle Carl are waiting for us. We'll have all the time in the world to catch up and tell stories and laugh. 

And, by God, Aunt Patty will make sure we don't skip Mass.

The Boys - Kenny Howard and Tommy Howard

My son Kenny is 13-years-old the night I sneak into his room to examine his testicle.

Tommy and Kenny

This is not part of our nightly ritual. But his pediatrician, our much loved Dr. Agnes Gomes, is concerned that Kenny's left testicle is not properly descending. "It's probably nothing," she calms me at his seventh grade physical, "but check it while he's bathing or better yet while he's sleeping."

Kenny adamantly informs me I will not be checking any of his adolescent private parts. Not in the bathtub, not in his sleep, not ever. He is perfectly capable of performing his own examination, he says, and I will be enlightened on a need-to-know basis.

Like hell I will.

The shock he expresses the night he discovers me peering under his sheets with a high beam flashlight is all out of proportion to the task at hand. Bolting up in bed, he flails as if waking from a nightmare then orders me from his room sputtering furiously that he hopes to God I'm finally satisfied to have ruined the rest of his life.

So sue me. I'm his mother.

Everything, thankfully, falls into place. I only tell this story to explain that our sons have caused me great worry. My husband John says I like to worry, but he's wrong. It's exhausting work. Instinctively, though, I know worrying pays off. My sons are alive today because of it.

Once John and I feared we'd never have children. Only after years of fertility drugs, roller coaster hormones, and a good share of agony was I able to conceive. The day Kenny was born was the happiest day of my life. Then Tommy was born nearly four years later, and it was the other happiest day of my life. Their father was pretty much over the moon himself. So even the excessive worry has been worth it.

From the first year of life, Kenny was consumed with great passions. An obsession with a blue rubber ball grew into another obsession for dinosaurs. Then it was rare coins, skyscrapers, roller coasters, guitars and the highest mountains in the world. Not long ago he was waxing poetic to his brother Tommy about the tallest mountain ranges in Colorado.

Tommy and Kenny, 1994 and 20 years later.

"Kenny," Tommy fumed, "if you give me one more fun fact about mountain ranges, I'll kill you, I swear I will."

Shocked into submission, Kenny relented. His good humor, fortunately, prevailed. "You know, Tommy," he said, "some people find me fascinating."

Incredibly, the two of them rarely fight. When they're teenagers, John and I hear from one of their friends about a furious, tumbling brawl in the mud that erupts between the two of them in the detasseling corn field. They never mention the incident to us, however, and John and I don't mention it to them. Whatever provokes the fight is sorted out in the hot summer mud.

Usually, even as little boys, they are completely in sync. Tommy retreats to the basement to spend hours dribbling a small basketball on the tile floor, and Kenny disappears to devour Harry Potter or to examine his coin collection. Later, lonely for each other, they play catch in the front yard or stroll down to Buechler Park to hit golf balls with an ancient club rescued from the closet.

Tommy, from the moment he's born, is pure delight. Perpetually joyous and affectionate, he possesses an uncanny sense of humor and thoughtful curiosity. In pre-school, he savors words, numbers and sequential patterns.

"Mom," he abruptly bursts into the bathroom one afternoon as I am seated and completing business. He takes my face between his hands to indicate the gravity of the moment. "A, B, A, B!" he announces carefully with four-year-old importance. "That's what you call a padron."

He turns on his heel to depart as abruptly as he enters.

John and I are not young parents, but we have never been so happy. Watching our boys grow and thrive is a miracle, plain and simple.

Because they are exceptionally tall, athletics becomes a crucial part of their school years. Tommy, sturdy and strong, loves football. Kenny, on the other hand, prefers tennis and basketball. In the ninth grade after an excessive growth spurt, he reaches 6 ft. 9 inches and is coming off the bench to play a few minutes for the Grand Island Central Catholic varsity basketball squad under Coach Bill Gavers.

Janie Hoch, a friend and parent of students John and I teach, tells me she enjoys watching Kenny play and has nominated him for a Got Milk ad campaign contest. The winner of the contest, she tells me excitedly, will fly to Florida to meet NBA basketball star Shane Battier and be featured in ESPN Magazine.

"Oh Janie," I thank her warmly, "what a nice thing."

Kenny, 2002, in ESPN Magazine.

Then I promptly forget all about it until the phone rings in June. The voice on the other end asks for Kenny and informs me he has been selected to fly with his family to Orlando, Florida, to meet Shane Battier.

A month later John and I sit side by side in Orlando's Milk House Sports Arena as Kenny, behind us, is photographed for ESPN, and in front of us 11-year-old Tommy enjoys a game of Horse with Shane Battier. It is a surreal moment. John and I stare at each other in a sort of bewildered daze. Things like this don't happen to people like us.

That is, in fact, exactly what I tell Kenny the next summer when, with new-found confidence, he enters yet another contest - this time for Nestle's Crunch. Ten kids from across the country will be selected to fly to Los Angeles with their families to play one on one with Shaquille O'Neal. Now 6 feet 11, Kenny hopes he has a shot at winning. With speedy efficiency he sends a video of his dunking abilities to contest officials.

Kenny and Shaq, 2003

His exuberance to win these contests in order to travel from coast to coast is our fault. When he and Tommy are young, we rarely travel. Owing to our Catholic school teaching salaries, our vacations generally include a few days in Colorado to visit Kenny and Tommy's grandmother and one overnight trip to Lincoln every summer.

"Can we  please, please eat at Chuck e Cheese?" our boys beg us. "Just once?"

Not on your life, we say. Our one day in Lincoln will most certainly not include a sub-par meal at a wall-to-wall, kid-screaming manic fest. Consequently, Kenny is determined to make it to Los Angeles this summer any way he can get there. There may even be a Chuck e Cheese.

"Kenny," I reason with him, "you were lucky it happened once." I shake my head. "It won't happen again."

Except it does.

Our boy plays basketball with Shaquille O'Neal. I am completely starstruck to shake the hand of the bigger than life Shaq who takes Kenny under his wing.

"How can this be?" I ask my husband the next afternoon as we gaze in fascination at waves crashing in from the ocean, the first ocean any of us has ever seen.

Tommy, 2010.

After those two eventful summers, nothing seems impossible to our boys. Kenny wraps up a successful sports career at Central Catholic to accept a Division 1 basketball scholarship at Denver University. Four years later, Tommy earns a football scholarship to the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

John and I dare to believe the sky's the limit for our boys. Perhaps they will be famous and rich and buy us a grand house.

"And give us the life we so richly deserve," John cracks.

Those things don't happen. In spite of countless protein shakes and diligent weight lifting, Kenny never carries more than 170 pounds on his 6 ft. 11 in. frame. He has difficulty physically matching up against 235 pound opponents.

Vannie and Kenny

Tommy, who lives and breathes college football, is devastated that, at the end of his sophomore year, UNO discontinues its football and wrestling programs.

Kenny graduates with a business degree from Regis University, and Tommy leaves school altogether. It seems a bitter disappointment at first and so unlike all that John and I had planned for our boys. Nevertheless, life goes on.

Today, they both live in Denver - Kenny loves his college town and eventually persuades Tommy to join him there. Kenny marries Vannie, the funniest, most wonderful and perfect girl we could ever dream of for our son, and at their wedding, Tommy as best man delivers the toast.

"Ken, you've finally found your Barbie," he jabs Kenny, "and she's a lot cuter than the one you played with in high school."

Kenny now works for the University of Colorado Foundation, and Tommy is a meat cutter by day and a bouncer by night. Vannie is a grant writer for the Denver Boys and Girls' Club. The three of them share a condo in Denver with Kenny and Vannie's dogs, Sarge and Luna. Vannie, loving and easy-going, seems not to mind living with a couple of hulking giants and two shedding creatures - the dogs, not the boys. Tommy takes over the basement, they grill outdoors on fine evenings, and there's a great park not far away. Kenny and Tommy still love to play catch and hit baseballs. Devoted Broncos, Nuggets and Rockies' fans, they manage to see as many events possible in the cheapest seats possible.

They're happy.

Tommy's artistic masterpiece inspired 

by TV legend Bob Ross.

Still, I worry about them. I think Tommy should go back to school, Kenny and Vannie should have a baby, and that they should all go to church. Nevertheless, with a surprising sigh of relief, I understand they are grown people leading their own lives. They make their own decisions, and in a strange way, it's a relief not to be responsible for them. Like many Catholic mothers, I entrust them every day to the arms of the Blessed Mother and pray fervently that God will protect Kenny and Vannie on the Denver freeway. I pray equally hard that Tommy will not be stabbed or shot bouncing a trouble maker out of the bar.

Tommy with our Blackie.

But how could John and I ask for better children? They are kind, our boys, and tenderhearted. I remember the way Tommy, as a college student home from school, accompanies me to the vet to put my ailing cat Willy down. As I hold my dying feline and weep, Tommy chokes back his own tears and gently pats my back with his big paw of a hand. The year before that, he washes my hair in the kitchen sink after my double mastectomy.

Kenny, who always nurses a soft spot for his younger cousin Laura, a sweet little girl with special needs, eventually helps coach a Special Olympics' tennis team in Denver. Even as nearly seven foot teenage boys, he and Tommy coo in gentle falsetto voices to our cats and sling them over their shoulders to cart around the house.

They have always entertained us. Donning a skin tight red turtleneck, the two of them cut their own magical Christmas album. They create masterpieces on canvas following the instructions of television artist Bob Ross. They tease Vannie, mock their dad's irritability with Denver's I-25, and make me laugh til I cry.

Now with the perspective of my 64 years, I am never quite sure why I ever felt the need to be hard on them - to make them feel shame or guilt or the feeling that we were disappointed in them. Like all kids, they made their share of mistakes. Tommy, having made a few of them in his early 20's, reminds me of my own irresponsible youth. He's become a very good man because of those mistakes, and he's taught me to learn from my own and to let the past go.

Tommy and Kenny. Our boys.

Kenny is always ready for the next adventure. When he comes back to Nebraska, he paces the house like a caged animal. He's still the boy who believes anything is possible - even a game of one-on-one with Shaq - despite having a mother who reigned him in with hard, cold practicalities.

Thank God he never listened to her.

In truth, more and more our roles become reversed. John and I ask for their advice - especially with anything technological.

"Now Mom," Kenny explains to me over the phone as if I am a small child. "Snap Chat's not hard. Look for the little bar on the bottom that says 'Send a chat.' "

If I could do it all over again, I'd forget about being so hard on them. I'd tell them every day they're the best, kindest, funniest human beings - besides their good dad - that I've ever known. I'd tell them that I love them, even when they make mistakes. And I'd tell them to never be afraid to try anything new.

And by God, I'd even throw them in the car and take them to Lincoln to eat at Chuck e Cheese.

The Girl on the Wall

The portrait of the young girl hangs on our living room wall for as long as I can remember. In her old-fashioned dress, she smiles demurely.

Steph, Katie and Jess, my sister Mary's daughters

I assume she's another knock-off print from the Green Stamp Store like Pinkie and Blue Boy. Mom has us kids licking stamps at the kitchen table like a small assembly line, and that's how she triumphantly acquires our living room decor.  A self-absorbed child, I am never once curious about the girl on the wall - not until after I've left for college. One weekend, home from school, I find myself curiously studying the young woman from another time. At once I feel a spark of recognition.

"Who's this girl, Mom?" I ask.

She looks up, surprised at my sudden interest. We've lugged basket after basket of laundry through the living room when we abruptly collapse on the sofa.

"My grandmother," she sighs, sinking into cushions.

Stunned, I notice for the first time the girl's cheekbones - so like Mom's. Not once have I ever heard my mother speak of her grandmother.

Mom shifts the basket beside her. "She died before I was born - when my dad was young."

Morgan, my sister Carry's
daughter

The girl, I learn, is Luella. In the picture, she's just graduated from high school. Later she will marry and give birth to two boys - the oldest is Allen, my grandfather. Luella is 39 when she learns she's dying of breast cancer.

"Allen," she says steadily to my twelve-year-old grandfather. "I need you to watch out for your baby brother. And your dad. He'll have a hard time."

Allen nods solemnly. Then he does something that later will cause him great shame. He lays his head on his mother's lap and cries like a baby. But for the rest of his life he will keep his promise.

The story I hear that day for the first time is tragic for another reason. My own young mother, who is beautiful and funny and escapes to her beloved piano on days my dad and all of us overwhelm her for attention, has herself been diagnosed with breast cancer. Wordless, she and I stare at each other over laundry baskets.

Samantha and Emily, my
brother Rick's daughters

"It won't happen to you, Mom," I finally say.

But it does. Just 18 months later. At one o'clock in the morning in cold April darkness, Mom leaves us forever. I am the oldest of ten, and my youngest brother Jeff is seven-years-old. Our giant of a father puts aside his own grief to make us feel safe, and my siblings and I depend on him and each other as we never have before.

After Mom's death, I study the picture of Luella intently searching her face. For what, I don't know. But I desperately wonder if my sisters and I, like Mom, will share Luella's fate.

Not long after Mom dies, my 12-year-old sister Terri comes to me, her eyes wide with fear.

"I have breast cancer," she says.

"Terri," I say, "you don't have cancer."

Her eyes fill. "I do. I have a lump."

Sydney, Brandi and Nikki, my
sister Deb's daughters

 I examine the lump which turns out to be a bone.

 "Everybody has it," I assure her. Relief fills her small face.

So closely connected are we to Mom that my sisters Deb, Mary, Terri, Carry and I feel certain we will all  die as young women. We schedule our mammograms and then plan our funerals as we wait in agony for the  results.

"My brother Tom should deliver my eulogy," I blurt  out of the blue to my husband one day. We've been  strolling around the lake together chatting about our son's elementary Christmas program when I make this sudden declaration.

My husband John patiently sighs. "Don't tell me. It must be mammogram time."

This is the way it is. I live one year at a time - from mammogram to mammogram.

Kailey, my brother Joe's daughter

My sisters and I make deals. If one of us is lying comatose in the hospital, it will be the responsibility of the others to sneak into the room to shave any unwanted facial hair. We prop each other up for every mammogram, biopsy and suspicious ultrasound. Then one day, Terri calls me from the Walmart parking lot in Lincoln.

"The doctor just called!" she sobs. "I have it! I've got breast cancer!"

Now 44 and the wife and mother of six kids, Terri is diagnosed at the same age Mom was. I cannot take away her fear the way I could when she was 12. Nevertheless, my sisters and I rush to Lincoln to accompany Terri and her good husband Paul to every appointment. Doctor Janet Grange, a much respected breast cancer surgeon in Omaha, tells Terri the cancer is caught early.

"You're a perfect candidate for a lumpectomy," she assures Terri.

But quaking with fear, Terri decides to have a double mastectomy and put her fears to rest forever. I think I have never seen my little sister so brave.

McKenzie, Whitney and Jamie, my 
brother Mick's daughters

Only two weeks after Terri's surgery, my sweet sister Deb's mammogram reveals atypical hyperplasia, a pre-cancer of the breast. Once again, my sisters and I sit shoulder to shoulder in the small examination room as Dr. Grange tells us something is off in our genetic makeup.

In a heartbeat we know what we will do. Deb, Mary and I will undergo preventive double mastectomies. We're tired of living in fear, and Terri has made us brave. That year of 2010, Deb undergoes a mastectomy in November, I go next in December, and Mary follows in January. Carry, our youngest sister recently divorced, refuses to have the surgery.

"I'll be careful!" she promises.

We respect her choice. Barely in her 40's, Carry is young and attempting to date again. I understand her reluctance. But when she flips completely and opts for breast enhancement surgery rather than a mastectomy, I hit the roof.

"What is she thinking!" Too angry to speak to Carry herself, I rail at my sisters instead. "You wait! She'll get cancer underneath all that boob job and expect us to drop everything to rush to Omaha and take care of her!" I shake with fury.

"And we will," Deb says calmly. Because Deb's the nice one.

Our words are prophetic. When Carry is diagnosed with breast cancer, we immediately drive to Omaha. I am with her when our heroic Dr. Grange must gently inform Carry that her cancer is aggressive and must be treated with a double mastectomy and chemo.

Karley and Kelsey, my brother
Tom's daughters

"But it's early!" Dr. Grange comforts my sobbing baby sister. "Your breast implant pushed the tumor up to the surface and made it possible for us to catch it right away. It probably saved your life!"

So what do I know? God works in mysterious ways.

Carry is the last of us to lose her breasts. After months of chemo, she is healthy and happy and a fearless advocate for breast cancer awareness.

It's been eight years since Terri was diagnosed. We are all free of breast cancer, and the relief should be nothing short of liberating.

Except that last July, my darling little sister Deb is diagnosed with an aggressive form of endometrial cancer. Even though her cancer is caught early, Deb fears for her life and the lives of her three daughters.

"You will promise me now," she sits down with her daughters Nikki, Brandi and Sydney, "that you will find out what's going on in this family and do what you have to do to protect yourselves."

That's the rub. The next generation of daughters is coming of age, and the nagging question persists. What about our genetic makeup is determined to take down the females of our family?

Brandi, Deb's daughter and a new mother, decides to take the bull by the horns. It's time, she tells us, to be genetically tested. She and all my nieces deserve to know what they're dealing with.

Clare, Sarah and Patti, my sister Terri's daughters

That's how all of us - a large family of females - happen to be in my living room on a warm afternoon last month with another Brandi, Brandi Kay Preston. A 27-year-old dynamo who at 22 undergoes a double mastectomy herself, Brandi Kay is a genetic advocate determined to help other women at high risk, a promise she makes to her own young mother before she succumbs to breast cancer. Founder of the Hereditary Cancer Foundation based in Omaha, she travels the country urging women to advocate for themselves and to explore their genetic makeups. She very much wants to study our family. Even if our own insurance companies will not cover the cost of genetic testing, Brandi Kay promises her organization will foot the bill.

Cathy

My sisters and I are astounded at the courage of our daughters. Kelsey, my brother Tom's youngest daughter, is too young to be tested. Karley, Tom's oldest, and Nikki, Deb's oldest, are not yet ready to know. How can I blame them? For so many young women, the truth is a terrible burden. Yet, my other nieces are desperate for knowledge. They plan to be wives and mothers soon. For them the uncertainty is worse than the burden of knowing.

"Growing up," my niece Brandi confides to us, "I remember how Mom would mark all your mammogram appointments on the calendar. Then she'd pray like hell and shake in fear every time the phone rang. I knew that would be my future, too," Brandi's luminous blue eyes fill, "and I've decided there's nothing else to do but be as proactive as I can."

Deb, Mary and Terri

All by herself, Brandi has organized this gathering and persuaded almost every one of her 18 girl cousins to be tested. Now they huddle together in my living room with three women who will deliver to them the fate of our genetic makeup - genetic advocate Brandi Kay Preston, physician assistant Skyler Jesz, and the pleasant nurse who will draw our blood.

Each of us and my beautiful nieces submit to the blood test. Then we wait.

In a matter of weeks, we receive the results.

Carry

While none of us tests positive for the BRCA1 or 2 mutation, the results reveal VUS - (Variance of Uncertain Significance). In other words, scientists haven't identified every mutation for breast cancer. Three of my nieces, Deb, Carry and I are all carriers. With the single exception of my niece Emily, however, every other niece is at a moderate or high risk for breast cancer, even if they don't test positive for VUS.

The only thing we understand, geneticist Brandi Kay explains, is that almost all of us, even those who don't carry the VUS abnormality, still have a strong familial risk.

So we continue to wait for the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. Hopefully our extensive gene pool will help to provide researchers with a few more clues. In the meantime, my courageous nieces are talking. And planning. Preventive surgery may well be in their futures, and they're mentally preparing themselves for the day they will protect themselves against breast and reproductive cancer.

But who knows? Ultimately, perhaps a cure or vaccine is just on the horizon. That's our fervent prayer. However it plays out, these gorgeous girls will figure it out, and they will never let cancer take them from their families.

Our mother, Patti Brown.
1930-1979.

Mom would be proud of them. I feel her close. She's watching out for her granddaughters. So is their great-great grandmother Luella, the girl on the wall, who had no inkling of the powerful force she would become throughout the next one hundred years in the lives of 24 women - her many daughters. Thanks to Mom and Luella, we will all live long lives.

How I wish now that I could know the girl on the wall. That I could sit close and ask about her little sons, her terrible fear of leaving them, and her eventual and helpless surrender to breast cancer.

How I wish I could hold her hand - and tell her thank you.

Jordan Engle

Jordan Engle works side by side with GICC students at a Husker Harvest Days' sandwich booth handing out chips, pouring sodas, taking orders left and right. Finally, a long time adult supervisor, impressed with his hard work, claps him on the back.

Jordan Engle

"What grade are you in, son?"

Jordan blinks. "I'm the principal," he says.

It's an easy mistake. Our new principal, like the one before him, looks like a kid. And to those of us senior citizens still teaching at GICC, he really is a kid. But we like him. We like him a lot.

Mr. Engle arrives on the scene with zest and fervor. A first year administrator fresh from Sutton where for five years he's been a math instructor, golf coach, the one-act play director, speech coach, the National Honor Society proctor, the Data team chair, and a crisis team member - yes, ALL of those - he seems the man for the job. Nevertheless, the new principal gig isn't always easy. Almost immediately, the school board votes to shut down the senior lounge - the secluded little space above the old gym - deeming it a liability issue. Mr. Engle delivers the blow to 40 shell shocked seniors.

The next week, however, he brings every senior Raising Cane's chicken to ease the disappointment. In the middle of a throng of kids, he jokes and cajoles and dispenses savory chicken fingers.

"He understands kids," says senior Jenna Lowry, "and he makes everyone feel welcome and better even when things don't always work out. He just interacts with everybody in such a positive way, and he's making this school better."

Mr. Engle is, above all else, a devout Catholic. It's what speaks to everybody at Central Catholic. He's the real thing. Father Jim Golka, pastor of St. Mary's Cathedral, is immediately impressed with Engle at his interview for the position of principal.

"It was clear to me," Father Golka says, "that his strongest asset is his Catholic identity. He lives and breathes his faith and has a deep desire to share God's love with people around him, especially young people."

Engle freely admits his Catholic faith is the result of a circuitous journey. Just before he enters kindergarten, his parents separate and divorce. He and his older brother still remember the pain of that difficult time. Only a year later, Jordan's grandfather - a beloved long time principal from the Logan, Iowa school system - will die, and a young Jordan remembers feeling suddenly adrift. It's only years later, just as he's entering middle school, that his mother remarries. His new stepfather, a farmer in the small town of Elgin, Nebraska, is a strong Catholic and convinces Jordan's mother to move her boys to Elgin and enroll them at Elgin Pope John. When he is 12-years-old, Engle and his mother and brother will all join the Church.

"Sometimes," he remembers, "I'd go to Mass by myself even when my family couldn't go." It's with his new stepfather, his newfound faith, and the Elgin Pope John community that Engle at last feels anchored.

"I know now that family is the building block of the church," he says. In his adult life, he says, he's committed to involving God in his own family. That commitment begins, however, when he's a 12-year-old navigating for the first time his Catholic faith. But in high school, the teenage years erupt, and Engle becomes somewhat of a troublemaker.

"Nothing serious," he says. "I was afraid of my mother. I'm still afraid of her."

Jordan Engle - Elgin Pope John bad boy.

Nevertheless, in high school he entertains himself by sneaking into the science closet and deliberately moving chemicals to the dismay of his confused chemistry teacher. The very next week, he arrives to class with a twelve pack of Dr. Pepper and candy flouting the teacher's absolute "no food in my classroom" policy. His pranks can hardly be classified as criminal activity, but Engle realizes now that in his own way he was finally grieving both the death of his much loved grandfather and his parents' marriage.

At Elgin Pope John School, though, in a strong community of believers, Engle is coaxed into immersing himself into TEC (Teens Encounter Christ). At a TEC retreat he meets a lovely blond girl from Humphrey St. Francis called Jenna. Jordan can't know then she will one day be his wife, but he recognizes that somehow Jenna is helping him turn back to his faith.

"I was very unhappy when I was a teenager, and I give Jenna a hundred percent credit even though she'll deny it to this day. She helped me to understand I had a hole in my heart, and the only way to fill it was that perfect fit of love for God and my neighbor."

Today, Jenna is a a third grade teacher at Gates Elementary, and the two of them are parents to vivacious Josie who, Engle jokes, is "two and a half going on 25", and year-old Carson with his sweet smile and mashed potato cheeks.

Engle family from left: Jenna, Carson, Josie, Jordan

The family is delighted to be part of the Grand Island Central Catholic and Resurrection Church communities. Jordan, as is his style, leaps in to fill every spot. At GICC's Thursday morning Mass, he sings and accompanies the choir on his guitar. When an advanced math professor drops out of the curriculum at the last second, Jordan jumps in. Besides his vast principal duties, he teaches math second period every day. He even occasionally makes breakfast for the faculty.

"I make a mean breakfast burrito," he boasts.

In a short time, Engle and his family have become part of our GICC fabric, and it seems meant to be. He admits to being awestruck at the amazing involvement of Central Catholic families.

"I can't believe how good the kids are, and our faculty buys into this place one hundred percent."

As for his own role at GICC, Jordan Engle says he hopes to excite everybody at Central Catholic about what the school can be moving forward. But mostly, he says, he hopes that all of us - staff, students and parents - can develop a spiritual connection with each other.

"One that will last a long time," he flashes a boyish grin. "Forever."

Ladies of the Club

A "progressive" book club. That's what my friend Barb Beck calls it.

"Would you be interested?" she inquires.

I blink. What does a progressive book club look like, I wonder? And how progressive can an old pro-life Catholic like me be exactly?

Left to right: Barb Beck, Sue Clement, Vikki Deuel, Lori Jeffres, Joan Black,
Christa Speed, Cathy Howard, Cyndee Shellhaas.

Progressive enough, it turns out.

Cyndee Shellhaas, the unofficial leader, hosts our very first meeting. Right off the bat, we set firm ground rules. Only the first thirty minutes should be reserved for socializing, everyone agrees politely. After all, we don't want to be one of those sorry book clubs that meets only to drink, stuff our faces, and gossip about the Kardashians.

Five years later, by God, I'm proud to say we've never once even mentioned the Kardashians. Sadly, the other rules fall by the wayside. Wine flows, Lori's lemon squares are to die for, and as for when the thirty minute rule for socializing disintegrates, none of us can say for sure.

Maybe it's when Lori makes us read The Weatherman, a scintillating and cosmopolitan murder mystery.

"I don't know that I was prepared for all the sex," Sue cocks her famous eyebrow.

"You're welcome," Lori never bats an eye.

Or maybe it's when we cry our way through All the Light We Cannot See, a World War II account that somehow causes us to reminisce about our grade school days in the 50's and 60's when we obediently hide under our desks during the Duck and Cover drill. Vikki, who grows up in Ralston right next to Omaha SAC, a prime target, remembers her mother's strict directions in the event of a nuclear attack.

"Find your little brother in school and walk to your grandparents' house in Grand Island," she instructs the horrified ten-year-old. "But be sure to call when you get to Chapman so they know you're coming."

Because you wouldn't want to be rude and arrive unannounced.

In the beginning, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to hang around these enormously intelligent women. Most of us are educators: Vikki Deuel is the retired long time principal of Walnut Middle School and one of the finest administrators I've ever known. Joan Black, Cyndee Shellhaas and Christa Speed are extremely gifted retired teachers in the Grand Island Public School system. Gayle Bradley, before she retires, works with at-risk kids at Grand Island Senior High. Sue Clement is our resident historian and astounds us with her knowledge. Not only was she a long time organist and choir director at her church, but she also taught kids history at the Stuhr Museum in the facility's historic buildings. Barb Beck, like me, is still working. She's a community college instructor in early childhood education and still the brightest, funniest girl I've ever known. And Lori Jeffres, the only one of us young enough to still have estrogen coursing through her veins, keeps the service techs in line at Jerry's Sheet Metal.

                                                                                                  "OMG - what if the pies don't get baked, the turkey doesn't get roasted and the cranberry relish isn't finished because this book keeps calling my name?!?"  (a Book Club Facebook post by Vikki Deuel right before Thanksgiving)

These girls are beautiful, passionate, crazy fun, and, like me, suckers for a good book. We've devoured the works of Charles Dickens, Tony Hillerman, Pat Conroy, and Margaret Atwood to name a few. Every selection is as diverse as the women in our club. and even Sue, who hates any kind of gore, dutifully plows her way through Stephen King. Somehow, as we share our own perspectives of great literature, my friends and I are sharing our own lives as well. It's because of Book Club that I know Gayle chases away a potential kidnapper when she's a tiny girl.

"Do you know my mother lives right there!" she wags a finger in the face of the man who tries to coax her into his car. Overwhelmed by the spunky little girl who relentlessly scolds him, the man throws up his hands and skids away.

Because of Book Club, I know that Barb, one day in the community college class she teaches, is slapped in the face by a small girl who's recently moved into foster care and been forced to wear clothes that are not her own.

"You needed to be mad at somebody today," my compassionate friend soothes the traumatized little girl.

I know that Cyndee's mother was orphaned, that Christa tenderly nurses her dying mother at the same time she plans her daughter's wedding, and that Sue does such a profound impersonation of Grand Island's historical Edith Abbott that I choke back a lump in my throat.

The ravages of Book Club.

We don't appreciate the real bonds of friendship, however, until election year, 2016. Abruptly, Book Club takes on a new dimension. To the last member, we're petrified of candidate Donald Trump. It's all we talk about.

"He'll never get elected," I try to sound confident.

But Sue has an ominous feeling. 

On election night, each of us in our own homes, we stare at our television sets in horror.
I can't stand it any more and pull out my phone to message the book club.

"C'mon, Florida!" I plead.

But as the map bleeds red, Christa messages one fatal line: "We're screwed."

Just like that, Book Club becomes vitally important. In a country divided, we all become aware that family members, work colleagues and old friends are drawing lines in the sand. Conversations become stilted. After silly arguments with people I love most in the world, I learn to keep my mouth shut. 

During a pleasant lunch gathering, a friend of mine shakes her head bemoaning the "free houses"  Habitat for Humanity gives away. Not so long ago, I would have confronted her. It's pointless now, I realize. Even so, I feel like a traitor - to the Ortega triplets - three exceptional graduates whose parents work relentlessly to earn a down payment for their own Habitat house and after many years march into the bank to triumphantly make the final mortgage payment. I think of Bev Yax, whose smile lights up my American Literature class, and the day she tells her classmates she'd give her life for the Dreamer's Act. Or Youhanna Ghaifan, also a successful graduate of our school, whose parents flee from warring Sudan to give their children a better life in America.

Thank God for Book Club. Other than my own home with my own husband, it's the only other safe place in which I rant and rage and vent. "We're not radical people!" I look around at each dear face in the room. "We're just reasonable human beings!"

Cyndee Shellhaas, far right, with her family at the Lincoln
Women's March, spring 2017.

Cyndee places a hand on my arm. "Don't you see?" she says in her gentle, wise way. "Everybody in the country feels they're only being reasonable."

She's right, of course. I suspect, honestly, that most of us in the United States fall in the middle during these turbulent times. Practically everybody I know, regardless of personal politics, is horrified by the border separation of children and parents. Most of us condemn racism, defend those of us who are disabled, and love without condition our gay sons and daughters. Yet even in our community, in every community, an explosive few feel empowered and emboldened by the President's new, pervasive atmosphere. And they scare me.

They don't scare my Book Club friends, though. Cyndee Shellhaas gathers her entire family in Lincoln to protest at the Women's March. She and Vikki Deuel commit their time and energy to the Literacy Council teaching, encouraging and befriending refugees who bravely try to make a new start in this country. Barb Beck and her lovely husband Dave earnestly teach one of Cyndee's students, Abshir Awalie, to drive and obtain a license as he studies for his community college degree. 

Barb and Dave Beck, middle and right, preparing to teach
Abshir Awalie to drive.

Later, Abshir will tell his mentor Cyndee, "My life is so good."

So is mine. I'm lucky to have these friends. They came to me late in life. But in their 50's, 60's and 70's, my book club cronies are teaching me it's never too late to make a difference. 

Every fourth Monday evening of the month is an event. Lori makes us laugh til we cry, Sue offers astonishing perspective on every event in history, Joan's passion is contagious, and Christa is serenely resilient. The books we read, and not always books we'd ever choose to read, enrich and inspire us nevertheless. They persuade us to see the world and its inhabitants in a different way and to examine our own lives in the process.

These last five years, my friends and I have discovered that good friendships can spring forth from the unlikeliest of places, that experience really is the best teacher, that even when knees, hips and memories deteriorate, we still have a lot to offer.

And that there's nothing better in the whole world than sharing a good book with remarkable friends.

Pat Kayl

Mr. Kayl swears like a sailor.

He drinks beer with numerous buddies, hisses, throws erasers at students, and sometimes - absorbed in his own consuming thoughts - grunts at me in the GICC hallway as if I am nothing but a pesky housefly. Usually I let this pass. After all, I've known Pat Kayl nearly all my life and am accustomed to the way he turns off the world to focus solely on the dilemma of the leak in the ceiling of the old gym. Or the leak in the cafeteria. Or the leak in the second floor art room.

Pat and Julie, November 2017

Just one time do I let him have it.

"Hey!" I snap. "Is it too much trouble to look me in the eye and be nice for once?"

Immediately he stops. I see the bewilderment and the way his eyes finally focus and adapt to his present surroundings.

"I'm so sorry," he apologizes, horrified by his behavior. "Don't know how in the world I didn't see you."

Of course he doesn't. Pat Kayl is our absent-minded professor. If he stares off into space during the middle of a chemistry lecture, you wait patiently for him to return - he always does. If he loops his right arm over the top of his head to mindlessly scratch his left ear, it means he's misplaced either his coffee cup or a sophomore boy with glasses.

And it's a complete myth that Mr. Kayl ever wears a pocket protector. Why else would his shirt, threadbare and half tucked, be stained with ink, avocado dip and sodium thiosulfate?

I meet Mr. Kayl for the first time at Central Catholic High School when I am a nervous 16-year-old. My family has just moved from Denver to Grand Island, Nebraska - a strange, foreign place my siblings and I have never even heard of. That first day of school on a warm September morning, petrified and homesick for Denver, I am introduced to Mr. Kayl and learn that he will be my advisor. In spite of my misery, I nearly snort. This shy, skinny man-boy masquerading as a science teacher is my moral authority?

Mr. Kayl, 1972

On that inauspicious day, I am not to know that Pat and his elfin wife Julie, a GICC English teacher, will be not only my mentors but my best friends for the next 46 years. In fact, I only feel a little sorry for Mr. Kayl. Father Hoelck one day has to rescue him from the ornery senior boys who manhandle and drag him into the boys' bathroom to give him a dousing bath. Mr. Kayl only laughs. He loves his students, and they love him. Those ornery boys will bear hug Pat at their 30 and 40 year reunions, and kids like Don Leifeld and Dick Smith will become his devoted and life long friends.

When I return to GICC after college to teach in 1977, Pat and Julie take me under their wing and show me the ropes. Their beautiful boy Eric is 8-years-old, and Julie is weeks away from delivering John. A few years later their only daughter Andrea - an enchanting, dark-haired infant with big dark eyes like her brothers - is born.

When I meet and marry John Howard, the school's new social studies teacher, Pat is in our wedding, and he and Julie - along with our other dearest friends Hugh and Fran Brandon - become our son Kenny's godparents. We rely on Pat for so much.

At Grand Island Central Catholic, he's the go-to guy for anything and everything. Often he disappears from class after a frantic call from the office.

"Mr. Kayl!" Sister Mary Leo, shrieks through the P.A. system. "The furnace just gave out!"

Whatever the problem, Pat's the man to fix it. And it's not just our broken down old heating system or the falling tiles in the gym or the sagging roof over the lobby. All of us call on Pat for help. Every Husker Harvest Days, he's in his element erecting buildings for our school food stands. For years he's the prom sponsor and helps construct mini-bridges or promenades transforming the old gym into a magical wonderland. He's the only guy who knows how to operate the ancient sound system during school musicals and graduations and spring concerts.

As well, John and I and all his friends rely on his help. One summer he repairs the wood floors in our dining room. Tommy, our nine-year-old son, sits cross-legged with his chin in fists fascinated by Pat's careful and precise alignments of every floor board.

"Man," Tommy tells us later. "Mr. Kayl knows ten different ways to say SH__T," he shakes his head in wonder.

Pat's classroom is a disaster - a hoarder's paradise. Twenty-year-old television sets are herded together on the counters for curious Electricity Class students to tear into and explore. In need of repair, large board games for Karnival Kapers, our school's big fundraiser, lie haphazardly all over the floor. Only the chemicals are stored carefully away - otherwise every item from every garage sale and science fair litters Mr. Kayl's room. First time visitors are visibly shocked when they enter the science room, and Pat sheepishly scratches his head.

"Gotta clean this damn room," he apologizes. "Maybe this summer."

Julie is every bit the hoarder also, but miraculously she and Pat know where everything is - both in their classrooms and at home - which is filled to the brim with every antique collectible you could think of.

In spite of the limited space in their stuffed-to-the-gills home, there's no place John and I and our friends would rather be than hanging out at the Kayls. One night at dinner, our good friend and principal Hugh Brandon steals little Andrea Kayl's pillow in its pristine Strawberry Shortcake pillowcase to lounge on the Kayls' living room floor. Seven-year-old Andrea is astonished to walk into the middle of her living room to see Hugh's big head squashing and mangling her beloved pillow.

"Dad!" she chastises Pat. "I told you NEVER to let Mr. Brandon use my Strawberry Shortcake pillow!" Then she bursts into tears, sprints out the front door, and hides under the old camper in the Kayls' driveway to cry her heart out.

Pat crawls on hands and knees under the low camper to apologize and gently soothe his enraged little daughter. It's the same voice he uses to soothe troubled parents, students and fellow teachers. Finally, Andrea comes back to the house to snatch her pillow from our big penitent school principal and return it to its proper place. Order is restored.

I don't know a happier family than the Kayls - until  the tragic loss of their 25-year-old son Eric in November, 1994.  Julie calls to tell me, and I can barely absorb the news. John and I immediately rush to their house, and I sit close to Julie on the couch gripping her hand. We stare at each other in wordless shock while John grabs Pat in an awkward hug. Then Pat shoves his hands into his pockets and cannot look up again from the floor.

I am afraid Pat and Julie will never come back to us. After many years, Julie makes peace with the death of her precious Eric, but Pat never does. It's the one broken piece of his life Mr. Kayl can't fix.

He and Julie continue to teach through the decades, and John and Andrea grow up to be  fine, exceptional people. Andrea, in spite of a visual impairment like her mother's, becomes a college professor in Las Vegas, and John joins the military, marries his lovely Darcy, and gives Pat and Julie three grandchildren. More than anything, Pat's kids and grandkids offer him comfort.

Pat and Julie's grandchildren: Ava, Balen and Edwin.

In 2011 when Pat and Julie decide to retire, I can hardly take it in.

"I suppose I'll never see you again," I whine to Julie. Life at Grand Island Central Catholic without Pat and Julie Kayl seems unthinkable. I am a little inconsolable.

"No, never," she shoots back. "Our friendship is now completed. Good luck and godspeed," she jokes.

They enjoy retirement, but Pat is always back at school to help with Karnival Kapers, Husker Harvest Days and the never ending quirks of the sound system.

I can almost imagine, even though a new science teacher inhabits the spaces of his old classroom, that Pat is still here. To see him roaming the hallways is familiar and safe and comforting.

Last year, however, he loses weight and begins to feel weary. Not long after he's diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Julie is upbeat and positive - she always is - and can make us believe Pat will be fine. Their good friends and neighbors Les and Dee Lucht drive them to doctor appointments and take care of their yard. Julie assures us Pat will soon be driving and mowing his own lawn.

"All is well!" she chimes.

Except it's not.

A few weeks ago, Pat catches pneumonia. It's only a slight case, Julie says, but Pat's fragile body cannot fight it. In a matter of days he's unresponsive and attached to a ventilator. His good children, John and Andrea, arrive immediately and sit with Julie who sleeps on the little couch near Pat's hospital bed every night. They are with him when the ventilator is removed. Pat takes three breaths and leaves forever this world and all of us.

We receive word of Pat's death at school, and after the day is over I make my way down to Mr. Kayl's old room. Standing in the doorway, I smell and take in the empty classroom. Even though it's inhabited by another teacher now and so clean I can barely stand it, it's still and always will be Mr. Kayl's classroom. I can see him in front of his chalk board scribbling undecipherable words from edge to edge before he scratches his head and loses himself looking out the window at other unseen worlds.

Pat Kayl, 1946 - 2017

Pat Kayl is our saint - not a saint in the usual sense, like the ones who have visions and hear God's voice instructing them to build Cathedrals. Instead he is our flawed, beer-drinking, cigarette smoking, muttering, grumpy, much loved old saint. Mr. Kayl is the kind of saint who drops everything to help you out of a jam, makes every student feel like his own kid, and who would offer any one of us the threadbare, stained, untucked shirt off his back.

Goobye for now, Old Man. Don't forget us.

And keep your damn room clean.