“I don’t care if you are a preacher! You ain’t listening to me! Ya’ll can ALL kiss my *** cause I’m going HOME!!” Smelling of Kool menthols and the detergent used to clean hospital sheets, and wearing nothing but the little gown they gave her upon admission, Kimberly started down the hall of the hospice floor towards the elevator. Her short, strawberry blonde hair was just beginning to grow back in enough to style, but today it was all natural curls misshapen on one side by a pillow that had mashed it to the side of her head. Her pale, freckled face was a mixed mask of anger and pain. At just 27 years old she was the mother of five, fathered by three different men, and had stage four, terminal melanoma. Now all she wanted was to die at home. It would seem like a simple request to most, but the circumstances of her life had brought her here to the last place that would take her and give her medicine for the unimaginable amount of pain she was in. It was her last hope of a less painful existence and death. And she wanted NO part of it. But that was Kimberly, willful, headstrong, and determined that the world wouldn’t dictate how she lived… or died. I think about this incident now and smile, but at that time it was just exhausting. The irony is that in spite of all of her bluster, bad language, and worse choices, Kimberly taught me a few things about my life, my faith and my practice as a minister.
