About Us

My Sister’s Story

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My sister, Audrey Jean Stewart, was born in 1968. I was born around two and a half years later. As kids, we were somewhat close, but quite different. Audrey liked to stay inside, while I loved playing outside. This changed as we grew older. 

 

Audrey was the perfect big sister. She became my protector. I remember when I was being bullied in high school and she confronted the person who was bullying me. It never happened again. 

 

We both loved fashion and she was very good with hair. I would always tell her: when I get enough money, I’m going to open a salon for you. But that never happened. Audrey married right after high school and had three children in rapid succession. 

 

After I finished nursing school in 1995, I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona to be with my boyfriend, Ken. In 2001, I got a phone call from Audrey, who told me she had found a lump in her breast while showering, and that she was going to the doctor immediately. We were both scared because our family has a history of cancer. At the time, our 58-year-old dad was dying from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His mother had died from lung cancer, and several of her sisters had passed from some form of cancer. 

 

Audrey had an ultrasound followed by a biopsy. After the biopsy, the radiologist told her that it “looked” like cancer. We cried over the phone together because of the possibility of her having cancer, and because we knew our family history. The likelihood of her surviving was not good.  

 

I decided to move back home to be there for Audrey and to care for my dad. My boyfriend had unexpectedly died in his sleep from a heart attack, so there was nothing keeping me in Arizona. After Dad passed in 2002, I moved from Aurora to Oswego, where I met my husband, Stephen. We married in 2007.

 

Audrey was first treated with a bilateral mastectomy. We were young and didn’t realize the importance of being aggressive with cancer. Audrey fought hard, year after year, hair loss after hair loss. Finally, she was declared in remission after seven years of treatment. 

 

But then the cancer returned with a vengeance in 2011. I asked God to let her live to see her youngest child graduate from high school. That prayer was answered. Audrey died October 13, 2012, when I was seven months pregnant and working full-time as a nurse care manager. Suffice it to say, it was the worst time in my life, even though I was carrying my baby. The night she died I allowed myself one hard cry, and then suppressed the grief until after our son was born. Every day I look at him and think of her and how much she would have loved him. How grateful am I to have had her as a sister? I am also grateful for my eldest sister, Flora, who is now also a breast cancer survivor. And I am so grateful Audrey was able to place her eldest son, who is autistic, in a fabulous group home, the year before she passed. He still lives there today, and I am his legal guardian.

 

Being a nurse for over 30 years I’ve had many jobs and the hardest job by far is being a mom. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a single mother with a terminal illness. I now know that my purpose is to make a world of difference to a motherless child’s life. Every day, I look forward to easing the financial burdens on a terminally ill mother by providing equal access to financial support to help her underserved children achieve academic success.

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From Mom with Love is my love story to Audrey and her children.

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Angela D Kohn

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