Bea Ackenbom-Kelly and her husband, Sid Kelly, are both dying.
But in the past few months, their house off Country Club Road has brimmed with life with the frequent comings and goings of family and friends.
Friends from their church, St. Anne’s Episcopal, and from Ackenbom-Kelly’s book club have come over and brought food. Their children and grandchildren have visited. And people they haven’t talked to in years have called.
“It feels like little miracles everyday when you hear from somebody you haven’t heard from in 30 years,” Ackenbom-Kelly said yesterday.
She said she has had a chance to mend estranged relationships and deepen other ones.
Both she and her husband, Sid Kelly, a founder of Crossing 52, a group devoted to improving race relations, have been getting care from Hospice & Palliative CareCenter in Winston-Salem.
Bea is dying of peritoneal carcinoma, a severe cancer of the abdominal lining that’s similar to ovarian cancer. And Sid is suffering from congestive heart failure.
Sharon Anderson, a former chairwoman of Winston-Salem’s Human Relations Commission, worked with Sid Kelly on a number of initiatives and found him to be a humble man who shunned the limelight and was genuine about improving race relations. He and his wife were known for their hard work and activism, she said.
“They were made for each other,” she said. “They both had the same compassion and love of people and for each other.”
They have been married for more than 30 years and are retired professors from Salem College, where they first met. Both were divorced at the time and soon fell in love. Sid Kelly was heavily involved with civil-rights issues, and Bea worked as a lawyer who often took indigent clients. She also was once president of the Winston-Salem chapter of the National Organization of Women.
Bea learned she had cancer in May after they had gotten back from a trip to Egypt. She said she had rarely been sick or gone to the doctor. But she went to the doctor this time because she was having abdominal discomfort, said Joanna Kelly, Sid’s daughter from his first marriage.
She was given weeks to live. Bea had surgery and then had aggressive chemotherapy. The cancer treatments made her so sick that she soon made the decision to quit and get hospice care.
Sid Kelly, whose health has been failing, soon joined her. They spend much of their time in their sunroom, which is filled with Bea’s paintings and pictures of their family. They have five children between them, as well as nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Bella Hutto, Bea’s sister, and Joanna Kelly, Sid’s daughter, have moved in and take care of them full time along with help from staff members at Hospice & Palliative CareCenter.
Two to three times a week, family and friends come to their house with food.
Yesterday was no different, with a table covered with ham, turkey and stuffing, and plenty of laughter and music.
“It has been absolutely the most life-affirming thing I have seen,” Bea Ackenbom-Kelly said.
Everett Hutto, Bella’s son, said he has seen a positive change in his aunt with so many people coming by to show her and Sid such support.
“When everyone has stopped by, it has reaffirmed that people care … it shows she has had a great life,” he said.
Sid Kelly said he still remembers the look of astonishment and anxiety on his wife’s face when she learned that she had cancer. But that has changed with the outpouring of support from family and friends.
“Slowly but surely, that look went away,” he said.
Bea has taken up quilting and is finding renewed interest in her longtime passion for painting. She has gotten scraps of paintings she did 25 to 30 years ago and stitched them together into collages.
Years ago, she had an art teacher who told her she kept all of her paintings under her bed. Bea vowed she would not do the same thing.
“I don’t want stuff I’ve done to be thrown out on the street,” she said. “I’m putting things together and making more things. I keep trying to make more memories.”
mhewlett@wsjournal.com
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