Living Fully: Woman is taking nothing for granted

"I know no more abou my mortality than you do; I'm just more aware of it."

Earlier this month, Kathrine McKnight went to the beach with her three children and her grandchildren. As a treat, the women in the group went to a salon.

There, the woman plucking McKnight's eyebrows asked McKnight about the armor-like device that she wears strapped around her torso.

People are curious about that armor. When kids express interest, McKnight takes a light approach. She may rap on it with her knuckles to give them an idea of what it's like and ask them whether they want to touch it.

When adults ask, McKnight takes a matter-of-fact approach.

"If you ask it, you get the answer," she said. "What you do with the answer is up to you."

She tells them that the cancer in her body has metastasized and a tumor is eating away at the bone surrounding her spinal cord. If the tumor reaches her spinal column, the armor may keep her from collapsing and becoming paralyzed. It might not work, though, and she might become paralyzed anyway.

Taken aback, the woman said, "I did not expect that. You and your daughters -- you're laughing."

To that, McKnight replied, "I'm with my daughters, and we're having a great time."

For 10 years, McKnight, 59, has been battling endometrial cancer -- a cancer that develops in the lining of the uterus. I met her in January when I was writing a series of stories about Hospice & Palliative CareCenter of Winston-Salem that focused on Doug Cherry, a hospice patient who has since died.

At the time, the cancer had spread to McKnight's lymph nodes, and the organization's palliative-care program was helping her with pain management. She joked then that the organization should change its name.

"I keep telling them they need to change their name to Palliative Care and Hospice," McKnight said.

She thought that doing so would give people a better idea of all the organization has to offer. As it is, she said, she thinks that many people think of the organization as the place you go to die. But what it's truly about is having the best quality of life possible when dealing with a life-threatening illness.

She has become an even bigger fan of the organization since May, when she became a patient in the hospice program, which means that doctors have said that she may have less than six months to live.

In January, she had no interest in speculating about how much time she might have ahead of her.

"I know no more about my mortality than you do," she said. "I'm just more aware of it."

That's still true. For each of us, she said, God holds the minutes of our lives and only he knows how many minutes anyone has left.

"This breath is all we have," she said. "This breath is God's statement that my life should continue."

McKnight is a member of Home Moravian Church, and illness has brought no challenge to her faith.

"I am immersed in the faithfulness of God," she said.

She has only to look at the people he has sent to be with her during this time to see that faithfulness, she said. Nor is she afraid of dying.

"Why would I not trust that God would be there for me and take care of me in that place?" she said.

She is somewhat anxious about what the process of dying might be like. And pain can make some days quite difficult.

"It can be extremely severe," she said. "It can take your breath literally."

And she does find herself experiencing such emotions as anger.

"Of course I'm angry," she said. "My life does not look like I thought it would."

For the past 20 years, she has worked as a systems analyst for Walker and Associates, a company in Welcome that distributes tele-communications equipment. Just before she found out about the cancer, she had made a five-year plan for her life that, if it had come to fruition, would have had her living at the beach today and working remotely.

She knows, though, that, in many respects, she is quite lucky. She still has her house here. Others dealing with serious illnesses, she knows, have had to sell their homes to pay medical bills.

From her illness, she has learned a lot about the importance of not sacrificing today for tomorrow.

"I do think there are a lot of people who give away the time they have today banking on the time they have tomorrow," she said.

She would not presume to tell others how to live their lives, though, she said.

"If there are words that people could say to wake us all up, surely to God, somebody would have said them by now."

For herself, she can say that, at the beach, she found herself exulting in the time that she had with her family.

"None of us took a second of that time for granted," she said.

"I think we all brought the gift of being present with each other."

■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.