Shawna Gillespie August 10, 2004
Saturday, April 29, 2006
So, I found out in the last couple of days that someone I used to be very close to passed away a couple of years ago and I was left oblivious to that fact until now. To make it worse, two of my cousins went to her memorial and never even bothered to mention it. I was out in California by the time it happened, but still. Shawna was a very sweet girl who had a habit of making very misguided decisions and I hadn't talked to her in years, but I always thought I would again. I guess tomorrow's never promised for anyone. I went online to find any information that I could about what happened. It was heartbreaking. What follows is everything that I found. I don't expect anyone to read it. It's just here for my own sake. I'm just sorry that I never got to say goodbye...
[Chelsea Standard 09/25/2003 Fight for life: Chelsea grad battling cancer By Rita Fischer, Special Writer]
Shawna Krakowiak has one big wish, and that’s to see her baby girl grow to womanhood.
The daughter of Cindy and Mike Gillespie of Chelsea, Krakowiak was hit with a one-two punch.
Stricken with multiple sclerosis before the birth of her first child, she then received a second blow — a diagnosis of aggressive ovarian cancer.
"If I had just one wish, it would be that I could see my daughter go off to kindergarten, or to see her go on her first date," Krakowiak says.
"I want to be able to go to class picnics, to be able to see her at sporting events, see her graduate from high school and be there when she breaks up with her first boyfriend."
But that wish is looking bleak for the Gregory resident.
Krakowiak and her husband, Matt, who married in 1997, are already more than $40,000 in debt from medical bills for treatment that has failed to stop the cancer in its tracks. They’re struggling to cope with her illness and medical bills while raising Samantha and Matt’s two children, 13-year-old Felicia and 12-year-old Matthew.
The 1993 Chelsea High School graduate has undergone nine chemotherapy treatments, but her body reacted so badly she had to quit.
In the first six months of chemotherapy, Krakowiak, who works for MCM in the Chelsea Clocktower complex, was so ill she couldn’t even get out of bed. Her hair fell out, she lost 20 pounds in one week and found herself hypersensitive to odors.
"I would look green I was so sick," she says. "I would stay in my room. I didn’t want to look sick in front of the children."
Krakowiak has also undergone stem cell transplants at the University of Michigan and at a hospital in Texas.
She probably would have thrown in the towel were it not for the support of her family, who sit with her through chemotherapy treatments and care for her 19-month-old baby, Samantha.
Krakowiak’s younger brother, Tim, who graduated from Chelsea High School last year, talked his sister into bearing another round of chemo, asking her to feel a little sicker for a little longer.
"I don’t want you to leave me," Tim told his sister.
"Do it for me and do it for Sammy."
Krakowiak says a trip to the Cancer Treatment Center of America is her last hope.
But hope comes with a huge price tag — $50,000.
Krakowiak’s mom, Cindy, put on a fund-raiser at Chelsea’s UAW Hall last November with food donated by the Wolverine restaurant. In July, family friend Vicki Cook organized a dance benefit in Brighton.
Krakowiak, who says baby Samantha keeps her going, says she won’t give up the fight for life until she has exhausted every option.
She hopes to not only see Samantha grow up, but to one day enjoy grandchildren.
"I don’t ever want my daughter to look back and ask why did I give up on her, or why did I not try hard enough to beat it," she says.
"If I don’t try to get rid of this cancer, I would feel guilty for not giving it all I could until the end."[Chelsea Standard 10/09/2003 Letter to the editor: Help young mom to battle cancer]
Well, Shawna doesn’t know how much time she has. So please help alleviate some of the stress in this young mother’s life by mailing your donations to Shawna Krakowiak, 151 Orchard St., Chelsea, MI 48118.To make a donation, contact Cindy Gillespie at 475-1793After reading your article (Sept. 25 edition) regarding Shawna (Gillespie) Krakowiak, the young Chelsea mother who is battling not only multiple sclerosis but also aggressive ovarian cancer, I called the number listed to make a donation.
When I asked how the response to the article had been, I was saddened to hear I was only the fourth person to call.
The family, on the other hand, was humble and grateful for what help they had received.
The more I thought about it and the more I got to know the family, the more I thought that Chelsea can do better than this.
After all, we give to community fairs, playgrounds, sports fields, historical preservation and to every child that comes to our doors, and that’s just one of the many wonderful things about Chelsea.
Through no fault of her own, this young mother has almost insurmountable prescription and medical bills that are continuing to spiral out of control.
Like most families, Shawna and her husband, Matt, both work and have medical insurance. Still, it’s not nearly enough.
When Shawna’s health allows, rather than spending what precious time she has with her baby, she must go to work or even work from home.
We all take time for granted because we have so much of it.[Published in the Ann Arbor News on MLive.com on 8/11/2004.]Krakowiak, Shawna Marie (Gillespie) - Krakowiak, Shawna Marie (Gillespie) Gregory, MI (Formerly of Chelsea) Age 29, passed away Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at the Chelsea Community Hospital.Shawna Krakowiak wanted a party.[Family mourns loss of cancer victim]
(From the Chelsea Standard 08/26/2004)
It was her last wish, a dying wish.
After years of battling a rare form of ovarian cancer, and after a long line of treatment denials, Krakowiak was worried about her family and how they would handle her death.
She must have known there would be tears and anger — both part of the grieving process — toward the medical establishments that could do nothing for her.
But she needed to know those who loved her would stop grieving.
After Krakowiak’s death earlier this month, her family and friends took that wish to heart.
After the funeral, 250 helium balloons were released in the sky, many carrying messages directed at Krakowiak from her friends and family.
"It was her way of giving people a way to let go," said Krakowiak’s twin sister, Christine Motsinger.
It didn’t work, not entirely.
Almost all the messages had to do with hanging on and reaching out. They read: "We will miss you." "We love you." "We’ll meet again."
Letting go is something that takes time and preparation.
"This is something that you can never be prepared for," her mother said.
Weeks after her sister’s death, Motsinger sat at the family’s dining room table in Chelsea, Kleenex in hand.
"We could have known eight years ago that she was going to die on Aug. 10, and we still would not have been prepared," she said.
In a video tape, Krakowiak said she refused to give up hope because of one other wish: She wanted to see her daughter grow up.
In her 29 years, she already had been blessed enough to fall in love, get married and have a good job.
Though she had her husband of seven years had known each other for years before they began dating, it took only seven weeks of dating for them to determine they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.
"It was one of those things where they admitted to each other, ‘Oh, I’ve had a crush on you for so long,’" Motsinger said.
He got her parents’ blessing to marry. They exchanged vows May 31, 1997, after a three-month engagement.
For Krakowiak, every holiday, birthday and event counted. The family celebrated Easter with the white hospital walls.
But pictures from the holidays showing Krakowiak are rare, her family says. She didn’t want to look back at the days when she was sick.
She and her daughter were baptized together on May 22. It was Krakowiak’s second baptism, done to reaffirm her faith, her family said.
There were so many more moments to look forward to — milestones as simple as walking her daughter to school on her first day.
She wanted to see them all.
Instead, she wrote a journal to her daughter and made scrapbooks. She wrote almost every day, dating each entry at the top, her family said.
"None of us have been able to make it through more than one page at a time," Motsinger said. "But she always ended the pages, ‘Love, Your Mom.’"
Throughout her illness, the family held several fund-raisers to pay for medical treatments.
Even before a previous article on Krakowiak ran in The Chelsea Standard, community members and strangers were constantly asking how they could help.
Three women who did read the article came to the family and asked how donations were going. They sent more than 200 letters to businessmen and churches, the family says.
"They did not do it for self-gratification or a pat on the back. They did it because they cared," Gillespie said.
Krakowiak never appeared to be worried about herself. It was her family that concerned her.
"She always said it was easier for the person going on vacation than it was for the ones left behind," her mother said. "She was confident in where she was going to go. … She was more concerned with where other people’s faith was."
If death is hard on an adult, imagine having to explain it to a 2-year-old like Sami.
Sami doesn’t yet comprehend where her mother went, her family says. She just wants to know when she’ll be back.
"We went for a walk, and she goes, ‘We go walk to see Mommie now,’ and we go, ‘No, she’s with the angels now,’" Gillespie said.
"You tell a 2-year-old (her mom’s) with the angels, and she wants to know when she’s coming back,"