And thank friends and family for being here. 

I am Kim’s sister Tiffany, one of the #durhamsisters. 

This is the probably the absolute last thing I ever wanted to do but I am thankful that I have the opportunity to stand up here and talk about Kim. To talk about my sissy.  

I hope in sharing my thoughts something I say will resonant with you. And that we will all be able to appreciate our shared experiences we had with Kim. 

Kim gave herself tirelessly to others, to her partner, kids, family, friends, strangers and of course animals. Often she said yes when her body was saying no. Kim struggled with giving too much of herself. But she showed up for all of us again and again. 

Kim was the person many of us texted first thing in the morning or late at night. Maybe it was a good story, funny dog meme or even a rant... one of Kim’s mommy friends, Abby, who she met here at SMM, text me the other day and said “Daylight savings is on its way and I have no one sending me dreadful texts about it.” Insert Crying Laughing Face Emoji

I know Kim would be the person I would be texting during this service. We would be commenting on everyone’s hair. She would so mad at me for not brushing my hair before I got up here. 

I could talk a lot about Kim’s 50 years of living. Her love, kindness and compassion she had for others but what I really feel compelled to talk about is what happened in the last weeks. 

Kim was at Baylor Scott and White in Dallas for 28 days and in that time she was barely left alone. There was always someone in her room, but we had a notebook that had things for her to remember, like blowing her nose, putting lotion on her feet, and to always ask for the big sleeve for ice packs but the small ones were a pain.

You know… things you forget to do when all you are thinking about is breathing.

Of course I also put in running jokes… like no cussing at the nurses even if you are kidding. And one of the running jokes was about the paper towel dispenser.

In her bathroom the automatic paper towel dispenser was out of paper towels and the battery light was blinking. Kim couldn’t get out of bed to go to bathroom, so, it really was just whoever was visiting because the nurses used the sink in the room. It became kind of a thing to us to get it fixed. And I wrote in the book “Text me as soon as the paper towel dispenser is fixed”.

On a morning we had to make some hard decisions we were in the room with a lot of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and equipment. I’m trying to keep it together and at one point I point wildly towards the bathroom and say very loudly… “I have one request… fix the paper towel dispenser.”

It wasn’t a full on Shirley MacLaine Terms of Endearment dramatic type moment but it was pretty close. I pretty sure Kim rolled her eyes. 

Several days go by and the battery light is still flashing. Nurse after nurse kept asking and putting in request. And finally Rob sends a family text… the paper towel dispenser is working. Hallelujah.

And for a brief moment Kim did get better. We thought she was fixed. 

We really wanted to hold onto that belief because if it was working she was gonna be OK. 

We knew Kim was surrounded by this army of doctors, therapists, and nurses who were trying to get Kim working again. 

One of her doctors, Dr. Vassar would say to the family  “My prognosis hasn’t changed but neither has my determination”. And as a family that really resonated with us. We needed someone with determination not just blind hope, or empty optimism but full out determination. Someone who would fight for Kim because she always fought for others. 

And she was fighting. 

Kim would always get the right doctor, therapist, or nurse at the right time. We would call these signs… coincidences or really I think the word is divinity. 

So, everytime I’d wash my hands, I would pull a paper towel off and I would open the door as the dispenser would roll down another paper towel and as it was happening, I would say “Kiki the paper towels are working and so are you”. 

We needed signs. We needed divinity. 

We started looking for signs and if you look for hard enough you will find them but we didn’t have to look hard. 

She couldn’t talk to us but she was communicating with us.  We all really believed that she could hear us and she could feel our touch, but we also felt like she was speaking with us in other ways. 

There were several times we would be having a really tense conversation and the faucet in the room would just turn on! And we would say… we hear you Kim, we know. 

Other signs came to us through words. On September 5th the word of the day was Extol. For those needing the definition it means to highly praise or eulogize. Of course that was her word! 

Now to give you reference of some other words of the day that week… crapulous and morass no definitions needed and JOLABOKAFLOD which means to give books at Christmas in Iceland? 

Extol was her word. 

Signs also came in the form of music.  Trace, Sharon, Cris and I were in the room and we are waiting for the doctor to come in and Cris said let’s do a random shuffle on your playlist and the song Time After Time comes up. Now Cyndi Lauper singing that song by herself is moving but this version was Cyndi Lauper with Sarah McLachlan! Sarah McLachlan!!! Enter the voice of an angel.  

The four of us sat there  listening to Time After Time and hurting our hearts, but I think we all kind of needed it. A good cry. We needed Kim to know that we did have a suitcase full of memories, and we all wished that we could turn back the  hands of time.  

But here is the best part… Sharon, Cris and I leaned into it hard… I am mean big emotions and Trace was sitting at the foot of the bed very stoic and he let the three of us have our moment. But when it was over he said that when I was at the bed and I was bent at the railing and when I would lift up… the bed would rise up and it looked as if Kim was trying to get up out of bed. 

And then tears became laughter. Because that is what Kim would have wanted. She would 100% be calling us out on being so dramatic. Cue the eye roll. 

I had a whole section in here about all the connections with staff but I had to cut for time. But one of the best is Kim had a Dr. Sun. S U N. At one point we all looked at each other and said we are all loving that her doctor’s name is Sun, right? Kim was and is our sunshine on our shoulder. Kim lived to be a rainbow and light in someone’s clouds. She was also commonly mistaken for the yellow teletubby LaLa. Lalalala

The BSW Staff was amazing. One of Kim’s favorite nurses, Elizabeth, even tried to pick up a shift for a fourth day so she could be there for a tough procedure. And her favorite tech, Audrey, checked on her everyday while on vacation with her family. And made sure do Kim’s hair before she left. 

It was really a testament to who Kim was that even nurses that she had for short time still came by to check on her, and even if they had only met Kim through us, or through the other nurses they all said they got a sense of her. 

Kim had nurses and therapists who were hustlers, comedians, workhorse, counselors, optimists and realistists. She had one bad nurse but that was okay that made all the other nurses look even more spectacular. 

One of the doctors said that saying our family had a deeper understanding on what was going on was an understatement. We told everyone when we walk out of that building with or without Kim… everyone would know that we had asked every question to ask, tried every treatment to try and worked out every possible outcome. 

Kim fought the fight we told her to fight but in the end it was rest that she needed. 

Sweet Kimmy. 

We know her kindness, generosity and selflessness came with a price… sometimes she trusted people she shouldn’t have, her giving nature made some people take more then they deserved, but that was who she was at her core. 

Towards the end… in her little ICU pod of four beds the people in rooms across from her were having really hard day. There were lots of white coats and people coming and going. Kim was still probably the most critical patient in the pod but that day, she just held. She was stable. 

And we told the staff that this is Kim… she always made others better before making herself better. You want to know Kim… this is Kim. 

Side note the Wordle of the day was Await. And that is what we did… we waited. 

By no means did Kim ever want to stop working, but on day 27 after I wash my hands and right before I was gonna say “Kiki, the paper towel are working and so are you”… the battery light came back on the paper towel dispenser. It was still working but it was blinking. 

But I knew. 

So, I looked up what happened that day in history on September 4th. After I read it I was like nope today is not the day. 

But on day 28th which was September 5 the first big thing that happened in history… in 2001 evidence was provided about the existence of black holes. Okay that makes sense that is what it will feel like when Kim leaves us it will be a black hole in the world. 

Next on the list a famous women’s rights activist was born but oh wait when I read a little bit further… I was like oh no this woman was against women’s rights. Nevermind. Today’s not the day. 

But then next on list was the Muppets first aired on TV in 1976. Kim loved Miss Piggie and just a few days before the music therapist came and played three songs it on his guitar. We had told him that she loved Bob Schneider so we think somewhere in his set was a Bob Schneider song but not real sure but at the very end before he left we asked if he could play the Rainbow Connection. Because if there was ever a dreamer it was Kim. 

Then next on the list of things that happened that day in history we read September 5th Mother Teresa died in 1997.  

And yes cue Kim rolling her eyes at me as I am about to compare her to Mother Teresa. But come on. There is some symbolism in this. These souls are linked. It’s a sign. It’s divinity. 

A week later I found a daily prayer that Mother Theresa said and part of the prayer reads 

“It will be you shining on others through us.

Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.”

Kim may or may not have had a daily prayer but she did shine daily. 

To honor Kim, we have to rejoice in Kim. We will be sad, we will cry, we will be mad, we will pretend like it didn’t  happen but through the grief we rejoice and will be happy that we knew her. 

We will be happy that she touched your lives. We will be happy all those cows that she didn’t eat that may or may not help us with air pollution, we will be happy for all the germs we avoided because she passed out wet wipes to everyone all the time. 

We will be happy for the hundreds of social workers she recruited at UT Schoolwork who are now in the field helping others. 

We will be happy she met Rob and they built a life together because now we and the world have our precious Chloe and Carlos. 

And we will all be happy that we all now know the word Extol.

The day the battery light started blinking again but dispenser kept working I thought maybe it is because Kim’s spirit is still working. 

It’s not the way we want Kim. 

We want her to be here to hear her laugh, to get an extra long hug, to get that funny text just at the right time, to even see her roll her eyes one more time.

But now Kiki we will say “Kiki, the paper towels are working but since you can’t we will keep loving you, and we will keep loving each other as fiercely as you loved us.”

If we do that she wins. 

She wins.