No one in my family dies and easy death.  For us, there is no peaceful fall into sleep.  Our deaths come with trauma and drama.
When Shirly was 9 years old (1956) she was riding in a car with her babysitter going up a very steep hill.  The car collided with another vehicle resulting in a head-on collision and Shirly being thrown out of the vehicle.  The babysitter, who had small lacerations the same as Shirly, but who had not been thrown out of the car assumed Shirly was okay, since she had gotten up and was walking around.  In those days before cell phones, and in fact we didn’t even get a landline before 1962, my parents knew nothing about the accident until they returned home at 5:30 that evening.  Shirly was experiencing headache, dizziness, and wanted to sleep, but the babysitter had not let her, thinking you never let someone who has had a bad bump go to sleep.  My parents took her to the hospital and it was found she had suffered a grade 2 concussion.
At 16, she ran away from home, lied about her age, and went to work at “The Bunny Club” in Lawrence Kansas complete with costume, selling cigarettes and drinks. Hugh Hefners clubs were becoming common all over at that time.  She never became a Playboy Bunny- thank goodness. Our older brother found her and told the owner her real age.  Shirly didn’t return home however, she was already used to being on her own.  She lived in a small communal apartment with 5 other people. (you must remember these were the “hippie days” of the country.) Her boyfriend at the time drove a motorcycle and they went on that bike everywhere.  After she had just celebrated her 18th birthday she was riding with him, when he had to swerve away from an oncoming car.  They hit the culvert at 35 miles an hour and she was thrown 40 feet and landed in a concrete drainage ditch.  She was in a brief coma, and suffered head trauma.  I can’t remember if any bones were broken or not.  After being released from the hospital she came home to heal.  She didn’t stay for long.  She went to work for the county welfare office, and shared an apartment with one of her co-workers. She met and married an ambulance driver who was very abusive, trying to strangle her and throw her through a glass window.  In 1971 our oldest sister, at the age of 28, was shot and killed by her husband.  Shirly had a newborn son, whom she had to leave behind to attend the funeral 2 thousand miles away.  The worst part of it all, was the husband was Indian and committed the act on an Indian reservation.  Local police were not allowed to investigate.  He was never brought to justice.  I think this was a wake-up call for Shirly and her situation with her abusive husband. She left him, moved to Florida.  She was here several years when she met and married a retired army Sargent.  She went into the hospital to have her tubes tied.  During the surgery, she stopped breathing.  In the ensuing rush to get her breathing and stabilized, the surgery was hurriedly completed.  The doctor left guaze in the operating field.  She developed peritonitis resulting in a hysterectomy and partial bowel removal. She was 30 years old.
At age 45 she was diagnosed after several years as having Fibromyalgia.  She was put on muscle relaxers and pain killers. This has continued from then until now, with stronger and stronger medications required to control pain.  At one point, we had her hospitalized because we were afraid she was addicted.  The doctors concluded that she indeed needed the amount she was taking otherwise her various muscles-especially those in her neck and stomach went into spasm.  You could observe that she has a bit of deformity from her neck being in spasm.  She also sought relief from heating pads, cranking up the heat until her lower back skin and muscle was literally “cooked” from years of use- I kept telling her if she was cooking herself on the outside she was probably cooking herself on the inside also.
In 1986 our father was going through his second and final bout of cancer. Shirly came down to help my Mom care for him during the last two months of his life.  Shirly and I held his hand as he fought to stay alive. Finally, after Dad making some very sad comments, and falling unconscious, we told him we would take care of Mom and not to worry.  We told him to “Go to the light” within 30 minutes, he took his last breath.  His death was extremely hard on Shirly. She was his favorite.  She had been taking care of him. He had not eaten anything chewable for two months.  One night, shortly before he died, he mentioned he would like to try to eat a bite of the meat she and Mom were having for dinner.  Shirly has just finished her last bite.  She felt so guilty.  She wanted him to have it, but there was nothing left.  She could not look at him and eat after that.  She lost weight.  After Dad died, she fell to the floor screaming in horrible emotional pain.  None of us could console her.  She went through the motions of the funeral, but she didn’t speak.  She went home a week later and suffered severe depression for months afterwards.
In 2011, our 82 year old mother was killed by her nursing home care giver. It was never discovered just who did it, since several care workers could have been the one to do it.  They fractured her eye socket and the fragments went into her brain.  Shirly was unable to come to the funeral because at the time her husband was very sick with an as yet undiagnosed cancer. She and Mom had never been close, and she seemed to be more angry than sad.
In 2013, two weeks shy of Christmas, our only brother was hit and killed by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle.  His injuries were horrific. Shell- shocked, Shirly flew here to attend his memorial.  We talked about how we were the only ones left…  She was worried about her husband, and she also told me she herself just didn’t feel right.  She seemed to tire easily, and slept a lot of the time.  She only stayed a few days.
She had always been a heavy smoker, and in 2014 she told her doctor she was experiencing shortness of breath and could not get rid of a cough.  The doctor first treated her for bronchitis for 3 months. Then, when Shirly complained it couldn’t be bronchitis and that she thought she had cancer the doctor actually LAUGHED at her and told her she did not.  She suspected she had COPD and to stop smoking.  She gave her an inhaler and nebulizer.  This gave her some relief for a short while. Upon a bad episode, her doctor prescribed new medication and within a few hours of taking it an ambulance was called.  Shirly’s heart stopped.  The EMTS worked on her for 45 minutes before they could even stabilize her enough for transport. It was found that the drug she had been given could not be given with her other medication- resulting in a severe interaction that weakened her heart. In the meantime through all of this, her husband was dying.  He was losing vast amounts of weight, had prostate cancer, and he had a “mystery bleed” they could not find. Shirly was having a hard time herself and could not get around very well because of the breathing difficulty.  He died, and two months later at Thanksgiving dinner Shirly collapsed unable to breathe. She was admitted to the hospital and found to have stage 3 lung cancer which also included the esophagus.  She was breathing through a space the size of a coffee stirrer.  She was told she had 6 months to live.  She told the doctor that wasn’t true, that there must be some kind of treatment.  He told her she would have to go under extensive radiation and Chemo and may not live through that.  He told her the best he had ever seen anyone survive with her degree of involvement, and type was 3 years. She said “Watch Me”.  That was 6 years ago. During the treatment she suffered 3rd degree burns on her chest area.  The doctor suggested she stop, but she refused saying the alternative was death.
She completed treatment and went into remission.  Two years ago her only son committed suicide.  It is the only time I have seen my sister falter.  I worried she might do the same, but, after deep depression, sadness, weight loss, and loneliness- (She only had me then and I live in Florida, she lives in Kansas) she pulled through.  She LOVEd her animals.  They were her constant companions and her closest things to love.  She would do anything for them.
Since her remission she went gone through normal colds, and other illnesses.  In the middle of February of this year she was hospitalized for a little over a week with the flu.  She had been home a week, still coughing terribly when she suffered a severe stroke. She was hospitalized and in rehab for two months until 1 week and 2 days before her accident. The stroke damaged her left side.  At first she was unable to walk, then had to have help, then walked with a walker.  In rehab, she walked with the walker until she became stronger and tossed it aside.  She wasn’t able to overcome her vision problems completely, but Home Health told me it was improving.
After surviving a head-on that most would not have, with multiple broken bones and a lacerated spleen, more strokes, and being placed on a ventilator, she fell into a coma from which she never woke up.  After the ventilator was removed, she continued to live for 2 more days. The hospital would put the phone to her ear and I would talk with her several times a day.  At my last call to her, I reminded her of Dad and what we told him about going to the light.  I told her I wanted her to do the same.  She died alone in a hospital setting with no one to hold her hand.  That will haunt me always.
I wanted you to know about Shirly's strength. I wanted you to know she was a fighter. I wanted you to see all that she overcame no matter how the odds might seem stacked against her.  She was the bravest, strongest woman I have ever known.  Our long life journey together has ended. I loved her and will miss her terribly.