Kaitlyn Conner Bridge -- 1995 - 2014

Yesterday my kid sister, Kaitlyn, passed away due to complications from her cancer treatment. Although there is plenty to be said about the horrors of cancer and chemo respectively, I don't really feel any bitterness toward either one, and I'm not keen on spending any time thinking about them. 

Aunt Kaitlyn with our daughter Madie in 2011.

The past few days--and yesterday in particular--haven't been a roller coaster of emotions so much as the converging floodwaters of several large rivers. I felt intense sorrow watching my little sister slowing turn darker and darker as the life passed from her. I also simultaneously felt intense happiness while two of my brothers and my mum and I stood around her and laughed at her outrageous outfits as a toddler; or the time Levi blow-dried her hair so it would stand straight up--she looked like a really round-faced Einstein; or the time Dad painted the floor of our dining room a hideous shade of pink per Mum's request and right as he was finishing little Kitty ran onto the wet paint. He turned and and yelled, "No! Oh, Kaitlyn! It's wet!" So she ran down the dark-wood hallway, giggling and leaving little pink footprints. Dad refused to get rid of them until we moved from the house.

Kaitlyn with two close friends, Ashley (L.) and Lakell (R.)

Kaitlyn with Madie at Yosemite National Park.

After she beat her first diagnosis of AML. She returned to Saipan for a visit with all the friends she left behind when she left to the States for treatment. She left very abruptly, so this was a chance for closure. This was taken at the skate park where she and her friends used to hang out.

Wallynda Wally and Kaitlyn at their graduation from MHS on Saipan. She technically didn't graduate from MHS because she needed to finish via an online program from the hospital. MHS invited her to walk at their graduation when they heard she was coming back in time for it.

Kaitlyn, Eden, our cousin Moses, and Christina Carulla at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon the summer of 2013.

That fall Kaitlyn started going to LDS Business College. At an opening activity in their ward she met Connor Bridge who quickly became a good "friend." 

Obviously he was in the Friend Zone for a very short amount of time.

They were scheduled to get married on April 25th, but on March 25th, she was diagnosed with a relapsed. They got married in the Salt Lake Temple on March 27th, and Kaitlyn was admitted to the hospital on March 28th. 

I came on April 8th, wedding gift in hand. She loved opening the few gifts they got--so many generous people donated money to her treatment fund. 

This is the last picture I ever took of my sister.

I will miss my sister every day. I'm grateful that, although the price turned out to be extravagant, I have a new brother that I hope to spend many years getting to know. 

I love you.

"a moment universal and idiosyncratic, momentous and inconsequential." (Monuments Men)