Catherine Brack
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG. 2, 2024 | It has been a difficult time watching our daughter, Catherine, die. Neither Barbara nor I had been with someone who was dying before our eyes. Though we knew that with her six-year battle with cancer she was moving toward death, we will never be over it.
Catherine lived her life to the fullest, enjoying life, was most successful in her endeavors, and never showed any rancor. She knew she was dying, but fought it bravely.
She was active to the end. In late May, she volunteered to be one of two chaperones accompanying 20 students at the college where she worked for a two-week study in several cities of Greece. On a few days of the trip when she felt tired, she remained at the hotels. When the trip ended, she stopped by England for five days to visit a friend.
On top of this, she had just bought a new house, and returned to Charleson to move in her stored furniture. That in itself is exhausting.
The trip and move-in set her back. On July 12, she was admitted to the hospital, and found to have a partially collapsed lung. Doctors drained 1.1 liters of fluid from her lungs. She went home July 15 and never left her house again, cared for by home hospice.
We visited her twice in July. On her last Wednesday, we sat by her bed on several occasions and talked, though it was hard to understand her soft voice. But from time to time, she would squeeze my hand when I mentioned something. That day she got out of bed and sat on the screened porch for 30 minutes.
On Thursday, she was weaker, but still responsive as we would talk to her. That day she even surprised us by getting up and putting on eye make-up.
But by Friday, on oxygen and finding it harder to breathe, she was not responsive to squeezing my hand. She knew it was her brother’s birthday, and she seemed to fight dying that day. The drugs kept her without pain. But about 11 p.m., she breathed her last.
Catherine made friends so easily, always smiling, and was especially close to her college friends from Vanderbilt. During her first cancer treatments six years ago, 50 of her friends, many from Vanderbilt, visited during her sickness, with some staying with her at her house in Charleston. At the end of that first round of treatment, thinking she was cancer free, at her 50th birthday, Catherine had a party for those visitors, 56 people in all, at a seafood restaurant by the marsh. She had lost most of her hair by that time, but it had grown back about an inch long. She dyed it pink for the occasion. We thought cancer was no more.
But time and time again, cancer came back. She underwent 85 chemo sessions, plus lots of radiation, and took all sorts of drugs that tired her body. But she kept fighting.
Among Catherine’s gifts, one of her Vanderbilt friends, Stephanie Shields, now of Sarasota, Fla., arrived 16 days before her death. She was her steady caretaker during her last days. What a blessing she was to Catherine, and to us. Thank you, Stephanie, from the bottoms of our hearts!
What a wonderful legacy she lived! What a wonderful life she gave us! We are so proud of her!
Catherine Coleman Brack, 1969-2024: May you rest in peace.
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