Lori Kinney had a story to tell.
But something more than just another story.
Lori Kinney had a promise to keep, and she was bringing it full circle Saturday evening at the Cape Fear Valley Health Foundation’s “Greatest Needs Gala: 30 Years of Impact” at the Center for Medical Education and Neuroscience Institute on the Cape Fear Valley Medical Center campus.
“I had the honor to serve as my mother-in-law’s caregiver during her 3 ½-year-battle with stomach cancer,” Kinney told an estimated 450 health care leaders and foundation supporters about the late Shirley Fay Armstrong Kinney, the mother-in-law she loved and admired. “Initially, the outcome was about 18 months with treatment. The 3 ½ years was a gift, and we worked to make every day of it her best.”
Shirley Kinney was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, a sister and a mother-in-law.
Lori Kinney wanted us to know that her mother-in-law was gentle, kind and courageous.
“She was the light of our family, but that light also extended to just about anyone that she met,” Lori Kinney said. “She radiated kindness in a way I have never seen before.”
‘What Cancer Cannot Do’
Shirley Fay Kinney put others before herself, even as she fought the cancer with hope for a cure and tomorrows to come.
“Our sweet lady latched on to a poem that she saw not long after her diagnosis, ‘What Cancer Cannot Do,’” Lori Kinney said.
The poem was with her throughout her many chemo treatments at The Cancer Center.
“This got her through a lot of hard days, and she used it to comfort family as well many times,” Lori Kinney said. “I still recite parts of this in my head on days when my heart hurts to hear her voice again. ‘Cancer cannot suppress memories, invade the soul, steal eternal life or conquer the spirit.’ These words keep me going and inspire me to honor her memory daily.”
Oh, how Shirley Fay Kinney hoped and prayed.
But cancer can be unrelenting and callously cruel.
And, oh, how a husband, a son, a daughter, grandchildren and a daughter-in-law hoped and prayed, too.
Cancer is cruel, and it can be callously cruel without conscience.
“Our family attributes the extra time we had with her to the loving and compassionate care from the team at Cape Fear Valley Cancer Center,” Lori Kinney said. “Dr. (Kamal) Bakri, Colleen (Kritz) and her favorite chemo nurse, Shannon (Moore), guided us with so much thoughtfulness and compassion some days she actually looked forward to going to The Cancer Center for treatment. She met everyone — staff and patients alike — with a smile and a hug. Cancer was never able to dim the light inside of her heart.”
As Lori Kinney told the story of her mother-in-law’s courageous fight to live, you could feel a daughter-in-law’s pain and angst and sense of loss.
“It was important for us to receive care close to home, and in the final days, that was more important than ever,” Lori Kinney said. “Even as our journey with CFV Cancer Center was winding down, the team continued to support us, love us and ensure that we were able to honor all our sweet lady’s final requests and wishes.”
A final request
Shirley Fay Armstrong Kinney died Nov. 15, 2018.
She was 69.
“But not before she shared her vision and wishes with me,” Lori Kinney said. “I vowed to her to honor her memory by honoring her wish to support cancer patients any way I can. This has led me to become a proud member of the Cape Fear Valley Friends of the Cancer Center as well as an advocate for family caregivers.
“As I stand here today, I am honoring her wish that our family support CFV Cancer Center so that they may continue to touch the lives of cancer patients in the same amazing way they did for her.
“The CFV Health Foundation needs our help to support patients and their families during the hardest days of their lives,” Lori Kinney said. “Please help us honor the warriors, celebrate the survivors and remember the loved ones we have lost by supporting the ‘Greatest Needs’ campaign tonight.”
A gift from God
Lori Kinney, 58, feels a mother-in-law’s presence every day.
“My mother-in-law was the shining light in any room she walked into. That included the cancer clinic,” she later said. “My mother-in-law was one of the most amazing people I had ever met. She radiated light and could bring a smile to even the crankiest people.”
She remembers the day they first met like it was yesterday.
“I met her in 1993 when my then-military boyfriend brought me home to meet his family,” Lori Kinney said. “She greeted me with a smile and a hug that could melt an igloo. Being that I married her only son, I really had no idea how much she would treat me as her daughter rather than her daughter-in-law, but I truly to this day feel so blessed that God sent her to me or vice versa, because there was no better mother-in-law. She really embraced what a mother and matriarch of a family should be, very much like her mother did.”
Shirley Fay McKinney was the mother-in-law who always was there for her family on the best and worst of days.
“She was the one I called when the world fell apart,” Lori Kinney said. “She had all the words to make it better.”
But not that traumatic day, she says, when the endoscopy discovered the malignancy and the health journey of treatments to come.
“She requested that I be the one to tell her children and grandchildren,” Lori Kinney said, “as she could not bring the words herself.”
For every chemo visit to The Cancer Center, Lori Kinney was there with her mother-in-law.
“As a grad student at the time with a flexible work schedule, I would sit and complete my assignments while she got treatment,” she said. “When I graduated in 2020 with honors, I declared it was her degree as well.”
She had a blanket made for her mother-in-law to have while Shirley Kinney underwent the chemo treatments.
“I had made it for her with over 100 pictures of people that she loved and that adored her,” Lori Kinney said. “I wanted her to know she wasn’t fighting alone. That everyone was with her at every single treatment. She would often look at the pictures and smile. I bet she pointed out to people how handsome her grandson was a million times.”
‘He is, and you are’
Lori Kinney longs to hear her mother-in-law’s voice, for another Christmas shopping trip together, another Thanksgiving with Shirley Kinney’s pumpkin pie and another telephone call when they would talk with one another for hours.
“Her love for all of us was as fierce as her battle with an undignified disease that made so many of her days unbearable,” Lori Kinney said. “But she was never bitter, never angry and never asked, ‘Why me?’
“She truly fought with dignity and grace.
“She would often see people at The Cancer Center that looked sad or she noticed they had no family with them,” Lori Kinney said. “She would find a way to compliment them, tell them she was happy to see them and many times offer them a hug as she was walking into treatment herself.”
Colleen Kritz was Shirley Kinney’s chemo nurse.
“She was just a sweet woman, the sweetest you would want to meet,” said Kritz, who retired in 2021 and now resides in Arizona. “No matter how hard it was, she always had a smile. She never complained and she was uplifting for other patients … for everybody. She was there to lift everybody else up, and always with a smile. She loved her family and always talked about them. Sometimes people don’t see the braveness and courage of people. I just felt blessed I could be there. Lori and her family are always in my prayers.”
Lori Kinney recalls her mother-in-law’s final days.
“I curled into bed with her days before she succumbed to her battle and whispered, ‘You can’t leave me yet. I think Cody is going to marry this girl,’” she said about her son, “and I need you to show me how to be the best mother-in-law to her.’”
The moment was tender.
“He is,” Shirley Kinney whispered. “And you are.”
Epilogue
Shirley Fay Kinney forever is in a daughter-in-law’s heart.
“She loved life and everything about it,” Lori Kinney says. “She was an amazing woman. Not a lot of people are lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law as I did, but she was far more than that to me, and I will shine a light on her memory each and every chance I get. Every day, I strive to be the mother-in-law that she was by doing my best to walk in her footsteps.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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