My sister Kimberly Gay Barnes Adkins passed from this world on August 21, 2016, in Midland, Texas.
Kim was born a year and a half after me, on February 18, 1960, and we grew up together, sharing all aspects of our lives. We played house and dolls and chase and army and cowboys and indians together. We shared puppies and kittens and climbed trees. I defended her from bullies at the bus stop and on the playground. She taught me how to be a girl. I taught her how to fight.
We played softball in the backyard, football in the front yard, and threw the volleyball back and forth over the roof of our house, one of us in the backyard, and one in the front. We drove all around Zachary, Louisiana, and the surrounding countryside, eating onion rings from Danny's Fried Chicken, and singing along to Dionne Warwick and Johnny Mathis and Elton John and Carole King and Roberta Flack at the top of our lungs--romantic songs. We showed each other our favorite houses and dreamed of our grown-up lives. We explored the woods at my mom's parents--the Beyette estate--fishing on the lakes, and getting stuck in the middle of the lake in a rowboat we couldn't seem to paddle in the right direction. We got locked out of our car in the woods when we went swimming on a sandbar on Thompson Creek, and had to bust the car window to get back home. We fought and sang and played and talked and kept each other company in every way until we were established adults on our own.
Kim was my first partner in life, and she was a joy--fun and loving and challenging.
Here is Kim at 5 years old with the 3-year old Sharlon in a box:
Kim died after a long, arduous battle with cancer. She was with her deeply loyal and devoted husband Court and beautiful loving children, Danielle, Jared, and Angelica. The family gathered for her funeral and took great comfort in one another and in the outpouring of love and support from Kim and Court's friends in Midland, Texas; from the community we grew up with in Zachary, Louisiana; and from all of our friends now.
In thanks to all who have offered their support to her family, and in honor of Kim, I offer here her obituary, a photo montage that my brother-in-law John Johnson put together for her funeral (with some of the songs we used to singalong to), and a poem I wrote for her when she was first diagnosed.
Obituary for Kim
Video photo montage for Kim
Kim was born a year and a half after me, on February 18, 1960, and we grew up together, sharing all aspects of our lives. We played house and dolls and chase and army and cowboys and indians together. We shared puppies and kittens and climbed trees. I defended her from bullies at the bus stop and on the playground. She taught me how to be a girl. I taught her how to fight.
We played softball in the backyard, football in the front yard, and threw the volleyball back and forth over the roof of our house, one of us in the backyard, and one in the front. We drove all around Zachary, Louisiana, and the surrounding countryside, eating onion rings from Danny's Fried Chicken, and singing along to Dionne Warwick and Johnny Mathis and Elton John and Carole King and Roberta Flack at the top of our lungs--romantic songs. We showed each other our favorite houses and dreamed of our grown-up lives. We explored the woods at my mom's parents--the Beyette estate--fishing on the lakes, and getting stuck in the middle of the lake in a rowboat we couldn't seem to paddle in the right direction. We got locked out of our car in the woods when we went swimming on a sandbar on Thompson Creek, and had to bust the car window to get back home. We fought and sang and played and talked and kept each other company in every way until we were established adults on our own.
Kim was my first partner in life, and she was a joy--fun and loving and challenging.
Here is Kim at 5 years old with the 3-year old Sharlon in a box:
Kim died after a long, arduous battle with cancer. She was with her deeply loyal and devoted husband Court and beautiful loving children, Danielle, Jared, and Angelica. The family gathered for her funeral and took great comfort in one another and in the outpouring of love and support from Kim and Court's friends in Midland, Texas; from the community we grew up with in Zachary, Louisiana; and from all of our friends now.
In thanks to all who have offered their support to her family, and in honor of Kim, I offer here her obituary, a photo montage that my brother-in-law John Johnson put together for her funeral (with some of the songs we used to singalong to), and a poem I wrote for her when she was first diagnosed.
Obituary for Kim
Video photo montage for Kim
Afternoon Delight
(for Kim)
When we were young, my sister Kimberly loved
Mrs. Strohschein’s pansies too…
And the big Magnolia
tree in the front yard
And
the swing off to the west side of the house
And
the mimosa tree in the back yard,
Where you could sit
in the bowl of the tree and twirl bright pink puffy mimosa flowers and tickle
your nose.
I loved all of that too, and
Stripping the mimosa
leaves off their stems,
Feeling the
skeleton of the leaf and the bump, bump, bump of tiny little green leaves popping
off, one by one
And sitting in the
Lancaster’s tree next door and twirling mimosa flowers in my nose, and dreaming
of the day I would rule the world with love and be free to roam wherever I
pleased,
Especially through the bamboo forest between our house and the Andrews’
And into the tiny
windows at the base of the Southwestern Bell building across the street, where
the men came and went every day in their big mysterious trucks with all the
tools and ladders and ropes,
And
under our house, crawling in the vast expanse of cool, dark earth
And playing in the
church’s gravel parking lots, next door and across the street, right after it
had rained,
When the dirt
smelled so fresh and rich and new, that we could feel the universe in every
particle and see our history in every trace of sea creatures across the tiny
pebbles.
We would walk through the live-oak and crepe myrtle lined streets,
Twirling mimosa flowers in our slender, young fingers,
Sucking
sweet tender honeysuckle flowers through our teeth,
Singing childhood
rhymes, church hymns of love to God, and pop songs of desire—they were all
afternoon delight,
As we played games
of make-believe and fun and chattered gaily among ourselves, like little
birds.
“His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me.”
The whole world sang to us and through us, and it was all love.
