Keisha Avalon gives mother greatest gift By Fabvienen Taylor
JACKSON — At 10:15 a.m. Sunday, with just the two of them there, Keisha Nicole Avalon, 31, gave her mother the greatest Mother’s Day gift she could: she died snuggled-up in Janna’s arms.
Knowing Keisha, not by chance did this occur.
Keisha knew it was exactly what both of them wanted — snuggle-buddies forever. Just the two of them alone, cuddling and comforting each other as they faced Keisha’s foremost fear: leaving her family.
Keisha never saw the concept of heaven as a better place for her to be; never wanted to be any place without Janna and Billy and her brothers, Michael-David, Vance, and Patrick.
Not even after Janna, trying to allay her fears, told her about Jesus, about how much he loved her, about how he would take care of her there the same way he was taking care of Bridget Clare, her little sister.
Keisha would have none of it. She wasn’t going anywhere. Couldn’t Jesus come here she wanted to know.
Admitted to the hospital Saturday, May 10, with a high fever and breathing complications, Keisha waited until all the “usual suspects” – brothers, father, grandmother Emma, other family — were no longer there. When it was just Keisha, just Janna.
Just the way it had been for so many, many, many, many, many, many times over the past 29 years as Keisha, over and over again, waved away that Grim Reaper darting her door, haunting her hospital hall.
Keisha’s battle for life began after a vicious tumor was eradicated from her brain when she was almost two.
That surgery was followed by a ravishing round of radiation treatments that saved her, but plagued her way along life’s path.
But it was a path strewn with the love of her immediate and extended family and their close friends. (motley crew)
Among other things, the radiation affected Keisha’s eyesight and comprehension, but even with those obstacles she could cut to the essence of things.
Once, for example, when her father Billy was manning the helm of Emergency Assistance at Catholic Charities, he invited a client to dinner. The client was a person with gender issues inquiring about some social services.
Knowing Billy and Janna, they answered his queries in the most compassionate and kindest of terms.
And just as kindly and compassionately Keisha voiced her query for their dinner guest: Why did he have on a skirt?
I would probably never have asked that question, but I would murder to have heard the answer.
That was Keisha.
Keisha, who didn’t want to leave her family to go and be with Jesus because she knew Jesus was with her all the time, sitting on her bed, watching “The Lady and the Tramp” with her.
And on Pentecost, he more than likely whispered in Keisha’s ear, told her to make sure she and Janna were alone together for just one more time, because after all, it was Mother’s Day.
gift she could: she died snuggled-up in Janna’s arms.